Freedom of speech is the political right to communicate one's opinions and ideas via speech. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is commonly subject to limitations, as with libel, slander,obscenity,[citation needed] copyright violation and incitement to commit a crime.

The right to freedom of expression is recognized as a human right under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and recognized in international human rights law in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 19 of the ICCPR states that "[e]veryone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference" and "everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice". Article 19 goes on to say that the exercise of these rights carries "special duties and responsibilities" and may "therefore be subject to certain restrictions" when necessary "[f]or respect of the rights or reputation of others" or "[f]or the protection of national security or of public order (order public), or of public health or morals".[1][2]

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"Special duties and responsibilities"... That's a tall order, mostly designed to make people shut up... People have the right to say what they want, including Andrew Bolt... But should someone take offence to what Andrew has said or written, and take him to court, then this right to say whatever is analysed and balanced against the hurt done to the offended people and the reality of facts... These duties and responsibilities thus should include the promotion of truth and the erradication of porkies... Promoting religious beliefs as truth is a porkie... Denying the science of global warming is a porkie... In any court anywhere, all the evidence would point to such, except in countries where religion rules the courts... There the courts are slanted towards the porkie from the beginning...

 

 

In a recent article about the Muslim Incredible Hulk Waleed Aly suggests that the Sydney Muslim protesters are pointless and only anger brings them into existence.  His commentary is yet another example of a failed apology in the disguise of an informed Muslim's explanation.

To put it simply, Aly is offloading the failure of his own commentary onto Sydney's Muslim protesters. It is an article that does little to help Australians understand a Muslim minority. 

Aly makes an insulting assumption about the protesters: they protest for "a shortcut to self-worth". With a swift movement of his pen, Aly denies hundreds of Muslim protesters of any political agency, self-determination and self-worth. They are instead passionately drunk on humiliation, inconsistent, unaware of outcomes, fuelled by the moment, swinging punches and unthinking. Consider his choice of words: orgy, wildly, frustrated, drunkenly, stupidity, scandal, cyclical, humiliated, disease and pointlessly.

Ironic, then, that in the same Islamophobic rhetoric, that I assume Aly wants to oppose, he himself writes about Muslims by describing how their emotion is their politics. The piece says nothing sophisticated about the world the Muslim youth inherits, but instead turns their reaction into their world. It is a strange circular logic that defends his argument. 

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4270342.html?WT.svl=theDrum

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In a letter to Mohammed Moussaoui, the president of the "conseil Francais du Culte Mulsuman", The editor of Charlie Hebdo argues the point that satire is a far much older tradition in France than the tradition "Musulmane" (Muslim). In the letter, the editor comments that nothing in sacred in this tradition and in conclusion, with respect, she says tough titties.. 

In the history of the world, one will discover that satire is as old as the oldest profession itself ... (barbecue-ing ribs), god being the most ardent satirist in his creations... If god was not a satirist, one would have to cry and accept that god was a sadist, a misogynist and a cruel bastard... But, apart from that, the tradition of satire in France goes back to the roman days, when Asterix... Sorry I am mixing my ancient characters here, but that's the point... In France the minstrels, the bards all had a go at satire. The best French satirist still being Rabelais, closely preceded by "German" (Germany did not exist then) satire, Just remember Carmina Burana... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmina_Burana.... when students satirised the catholic church...

Who can forget the Roman satirist Horace whose poetry became "the common currency of civilization" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace)...

It is about time the righteous, the tight arse bigots and sharia promoters discovered the truth:

Satire transcends and preceeds religion...

hebdo letter page one...

 

"Should they occur, US citizens should avoid the immediate demonstration areas," the letter reads.

"Fast-forming anti-American protests in Australia remain possible."
A spokeswoman for the US consulate told Fairfax Media that the last time such a warning was issued to its citizens was for the Queensland floods in early 2011.
The letter also urges Americans to avoid attracting attention to themselves as US citizens.
"The Department of State remains concerned about the threat of violence against US citizens and interests throughout the world. US citizens are reminded to maintain a high level of vigilance, to be aware of their surroundings and to take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness," it reads.

Meanwhile Muslim leaders have thrown their support behind the NSW Police ahead of the rumoured protests this weekend.
The grand mufti of Australia, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, who has never fronted the media in such a way, joined two prominent sheikhs, riot police and the NSW Police Deputy Commissioner, Nick Kaldas, this afternoon to declare their support for the actions of police during and after the violent protests last weekend.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/us-warning-for-citizens-20120920-268w1.html#ixzz270WUBPvn
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Protesting about a silly video trailer from a movie that does not exist? Or planning to behead people for silly cartoons?... Goodness me, I know some of us protested against the Vietnam war and against the elimination of the Rabbitohs from the comp, but this takes the cake in unreality...

 

 

A legal complaint has been filed against a French satirical magazine which published obscene cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The complaint accuses the magazine of inciting hatred.

A little-known Syrian organisation lodged the complaint with prosecutors in Paris, who will decide if action should be taken against Charlie Hebdo.

France is braced for protests, with plans to close some embassies in foreign capitals on Friday.

Embassies, consulates, cultural centres and schools in some 20 countries are to shut as a precaution. Public protests in Muslim countries sometimes take place after traditional Friday prayers.

A tenet of Islam bans the portrayal of its founder, the Prophet Muhammad.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19659554

 

----------------------------

A tenet of satire is to go beyond tenets... The cartoons are far less obscene than any religious beliefs that purport to keep women behind veils and burqas, without any chance of interactions with other people than those strictly prescribed by the men of their family... Freedom? indoctrination of the biggest order... Manipulation of the "spirit" from a young age. The destruction of curiosity... The rule by fear — of physical punishment rather than a behaviour of choice in understanding. Grow up.

 

Foreign Minister Bob Carr says he supports a decision by the French government to ban illegal demonstrations linked to an anti-Islam film which has sparked violence around the world.

The French government says it will not tolerate illegal protests this weekend and security has been tightened at French embassies and schools in 20 countries.

Mr Carr, who is currently in France, says it is not up to Western governments to censor freedom of expression.

But he has met his French counterpart Laurent Fabius to discuss alternatives to demonstrations that the Muslim community could consider.

"There are alternatives to violent demonstrations - one would be for Arab governments to fund explanations of Islam in western languages," he said.

"A second would be to produce an online reply to what is seen as anti-Islamic material. That would have more impact than demonstrations.

"It is not up to a government in the Western world to censor media."

It comes as the Syrian Freedom Association files a legal complaint against French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

The complaint accuses the magazine of inciting hatred.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-21/carr-supports-french-ban-on-islam-film-protests/4272994

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Gus: at no point in the history of satire has its purpose been to "incite hatred"... Or if it ever had, I must have blinked...

 

CLEVELAND — Sixteen Amish men and women were convicted Thursday of hate crimes for a series of hair- and beard- cutting attacks on fellow sect members in a religious dispute that offered a rare and sometimes lurid glimpse into the closed and usually self-regulating community of believers.

A federal jury found 66-year-old Samuel Mullet, the leader of the breakaway group, guilty of orchestrating the cuttings last fall in an attempt to shame mainstream members of his community who he believed were straying from their beliefs. His followers were found guilty of carrying out the attacks, which terrorized the normally peaceful religious settlement that aims to live simply and piously.

Prosecutors and witnesses described how sons pulled their father out of bed and chopped off his beard in the moonlight and how women surrounded their mother-in-law and cut off two feet of her hair, taking it down to the scalp in some places.

The defendants face prison terms of 10 years or more. Prosecutors say they targeted hair because it carries spiritual significance in their faith.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/deliberations-entering-day-5-in-trial-of-ohio-amish-charged-in-beard-cutting-attacks/2012/09/20/f099e37e-02eb-11e2-9132-f2750cd65f97_print.html

 

 

Pakistani TV channels are airing an advert showing news clips of US President Barack Obama condemning an anti-Islam film made in the US.

The advert also features a statement from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a news conference rejecting the amateur film's message.

Unrest over the film, Innocence of Muslims, has claimed several lives.

Also on Thursday, a protest against the film outside the US embassy which had turned violent ended peacefully.

The adverts seek to emphasise the message reiterated by US officials throughout the crisis: that the "disgusting" film was not made by the US government, but that there is never any justification for violence.

The embassy described the advert as a "public service announcement" and repeated the statements from Mr Obama and Ms Clinton on itsTwitter feed.

A caption on the advert, which ends with the seal of the US embassy in Islamabad, reads "Paid Content", the Associated Press reports.

State department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed the US spent $70,000 (£43,220) to air the 30-second clip on seven Pakistani TV stations.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19664392

 

An Egyptian newspaper has launched a campaign against the obscene cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published by the French magazine, Charlie Hebdo.

Al-Watan, a secular daily, published 13 cartoons on Monday under the slogan "Fight cartoons with cartoons".

One shows a pair of glasses through which the burning World Trade Center is seen, with the caption: "Western glasses for the Islamic world".

Charlie Hebdo's cartoons played on the uproar over a video which mocks Islam.

Some 50 people have died in violent protests which erupted two weeks ago over the amateur film, Innocence of Muslims.

...

Readers of al-Watan, which is critical of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood of President Mohammed Mursi, reacted positively to the supplement, with some leaving comments on its website praising the idea of confronting "thought with thought" and thanking the paper for its "civilised response."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19721654

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the alleged filmmaker behind the video that sparked protests across the Muslim world, has been arrested in Los Angeles.
"I can confirm he's in custody, scheduled to make a court appearance as we speak, in federal court in downtown LA," Thom Mrozek of the United States Attorney's Office said, giving no further details.
The exact nature of the court appearance is unclear, because the federal court documents have been sealed. Officials have been investigating whether he may have violated probation terms for a previous offence.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/antiislam-filmmaker-arrested-in-la-20120928-26oyn.html#ixzz27ibBiwP8

CONTROVERSY

Laugh, Damn God!

Paint a glorious Muhammad, you die.

Draw a funny Muhammad, you die.

Paint a ridiculous Muhammad, you die.

Make a shit film about Muhammad, you die.

Resist religious terror, you die.

Lick fundamentalists' arses, you die.

Take an obscurantist for a jerk, you die.

Try to grapple with an obscurantist, you die.

There is nothing to negotiate with fascists.

Freedom to laugh unrestrainedly, the law gave it to us

                  — and the systematic violence of extremists gives it to us.

Thank you, assholes.

 

Gus: this is elegant poetry published by Charlie Hebdo, translated by Google...

Thousands of you have been kind enough to show us support, we’ve received messages from the whole world, including countries where it’s forbidden to laugh about anything, let alone a prophet. Many of you have asked how you can help us. It’s easy: just read us as often as you can afford it. You keep the free press alive as much as we do. 
You can also sign this petition of support, to show straight-laced intellectuals, spineless politicians and an upper middle-class devoted to enforcing good taste through censorship that the worst scandal in a free country isn’t abusing free speech, it is being afraid to use it. 
In the name of the whole team, thank you for standing by our side.

Charb 

 

PETITION FOR SUPPORTING CHARLIE HEBDO AND THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH

We, the readers or non-readers of Charlie Hebdo, declare that the freedom of press does not stop with the threats and intimidation by a handful of excited extremists and legitimized by fearful politicians and intellectual cowards. If freedom of expression has limits, these are defined by the law, not by the violence or the promise of violence. 
By publishing drawings representing Muhammad, Charlie Hebdo only exercises its right to satirize. Is Charlie Hebdo a tasteless newspaper? What would be a satirical newspaper of good taste?
Would it be allowed to caricature the Pope, Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Marx, Napoleon, our mother-in-law, but not Muhammad? What would justify such discrimination? 
The real insult, it is to suggest that Muslims are not believers or are second class citizens and moderation would be inaccessible to them. 
With Charlie Hebdo we say, yes, we can laugh at everything but no one is obliged to join us !

To sign the petition, please click here

French secret services stopped tracking Toulouse gunman Mohamed Merah, despite evidence of his extensive links to jihadists, including in the UK, leaked documents suggest.

Le Monde newspaper says it has seen notes from the domestic intelligence agency DCRI describing his successful efforts to conceal his movements.

The judge investigating the case said he was perplexed by the DCRI decision.

Merah killed seven people in March before being shot dead by police.

The victims included three soldiers and four Jewish people.

The leaked papers suggest there was more than just suspicion on the part of the French intelligence services, says the BBC's Christian Fraser in Paris.

Merah had been tracked by the security services since 2006.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20003470

The satirical cover of last week's Charlie Hebdo here above, I guess is designed to attract the attention that compared to the new waves of religious police that ban humour, of sharia dictums and fanatics amongst the Muslims in Europe and elsewhere, Merah was a nice little boy...

All this of course keeps MI5 and other secret service organisations, such as the Bundesnachrichtendienst, very busy, often stretched to the limit and mistakes are made... All in all, we cannot deny that there are loonies out there prepared to do bad deeds daily, whether in revenge to our previous bad deeds or simply under religious instructions...

What is extraordinary, is that there is not more crap going on but then the secret vigilance may hit them before they arise and we, the plebs, only hear about one in every hundred cases of snuffing out...

Meanwhile in Beirut:

Lebanon's head of internal intelligence has been killed in a massive car bomb attack in central Beirut.

Wissam al-Hassan was among eight people who died in the attack. He was close to opposition leader Saad Hariri, a leading critic of the government in neighbouring Syria.

Dozens were wounded in the blast, which Mr Hariri blamed on Damascus. Syria's government condemned the bombing.

Tension in Lebanon has been rising as a result of the Syrian conflict.

Lebanon's religious communities are divided between those who support the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad - including many Shias - and those mostly from the Sunni community who back the rebels.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20008827

 

Coming as it did just weeks before a tight French presidential election last spring, the killing spree by self-described al-Qaeda militant Mohammed Merah mixed presidential politics with growing concerns about public security in France. Both of those elements have only taken on additional significance during the eight months since Merah was killed in a gun battle with police March 22; recent events have sharpened suspicions that intelligence officials and government authorities may have erred in dealing with the jihadi who murdered seven people.

The latest revelation in the debate over Merah’s handling came Nov. 1. During an interview with Europe 1 radio, Claude Guéant — a close adviser of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, and Interior Minister at the time of Merah’s spree — staunchly defended the actions of the government and intelligence officials in the case. But Guéant also acknowledged a previously unknown failure during the police siege of the jihadi’s Toulouse apartment.

http://world.time.com/2012/11/05/frances-benghazi-was-the-case-of-mohammed-merah-bungled/
See wasted space above...

 

Many campuses congratulate themselves on their broad-mindedness when they establish small “free-speech zones” where political advocacy can be scheduled. At one point Texas Tech’s 28,000 students had a “free-speech gazebo” that was 20 feet wide. And you thought the First Amendment made America a free-speech zone.

At Tufts, a conservative newspaper committed “harassment” by printing accurate quotations from the Koran and a verified fact about the status of women in Saudi Arabia. Lukianoff says that Tufts may have been the first American institution “to find someone guilty of harassment for stating verifiable facts directed at no one in particular.”

He documents how “orientation” programs for freshmen become propaganda to (in the words of one orthodoxy enforcer) “leave a mental footprint on their consciousness.” Faculty, too, can face mandatory consciousness-raising.

In 2007, Donald Hindley, a politics professor at Brandeis, was found guilty of harassment because when teaching Latin American politics he explained the origin of the word “wetbacks,” which refers to immigrants crossing the Rio Grande. Without a hearing, the university provost sent Hindley a letter stating that the university “will not tolerate inappropriate, racial and discriminatory conduct.” The assistant provost was assigned to monitor Hindley’s classes “to ensure that you do not engage in further violations of the nondiscrimination and harassment policy.” Hindley was required to attend “anti-discrimination training.”

Such coercion is a natural augmentation of censorship. Next comes mob rule. Last year, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the vice provost for diversity and climate — really; you can’t make this stuff up — encouraged students to disrupt a news conference by a speaker opposed to racial preferences. They did, which the vice provost called “awesome.” This is the climate on an especially liberal campus that celebrates “diversity” in everything but thought.

“What happens on campus,” Lukianoff says, “doesn’t stay on campus” because censorship has “downstream effects.” He quotes a sociologist whose data he says demonstrate that “those with the highest levels of education have the lowest exposure to people with conflicting points of view.” This encourages “the human tendency to live within our own echo chambers.” Parents’ tuition dollars and student indebtedness pay for this. Good grief.

georgewill@washpost.com

Read more from Opinions: Jonathan Turley: How the Western world is limiting free speech The Post’s View: Mr. Obama’s refreshing defense of free speech Katrina vanden Heuvel: Free college? We can afford it.

"Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]"

16 April 1963
My Dear Fellow Clergymen:
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here. I am here because I have organizational ties here.

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.

Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants--for example, to remove the stores' humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained. As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?" We decided to schedule our direct action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic-withdrawal program would be the by product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.

read more: http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

 

Please note that Gus Leonisky is an atheist against slavery and its sister — discrimination... Nonetheless, Gus will attack religious "traditions" that are designed to enslave women for men or any other forms of discrinimation within the religious beliefs.