Danish 'Muhammad' Cartoonist To Receive German Media Freedom Prize

As loathsome as I find Scientology, they usually do their talking through lawyers, not through violence.

 

Ohhhhhh ATW and basso. I love the way you guys put words in people's mouths (or text in people's posts?). I'm starting to feel you both are the same person.

 

Good for him. Speaking your beliefs in the face of threats and violence, and paving the way for others to do the same, is a courageous deed that even the people who has posted shallow, snide, negative remarks about will receive residual benefit from, whether they realize it or not. Taste cannot be accounted for, but freedom can be.

 

That makes Stone and Parker even more courageous. I would much rather face death than deal with lawyers. :grin:

 

What are you accusing Obama of doing this time?

 

two words:

piss. christ.

 

oh, nothing.

Spoiler

 

I hear you, I think its tasteless, but you know I could see it being offense, I just short of shook my head and moved along, and i know many muslims that did the same, infact I was in the middle east, most people just wanted to know why? We understand freedom of speech, but is it meant to just insult someone we look up to and devote ourselves to some of his life.

But point being millions and millions of msulims like myself didn't respond threateningly, majority actually. I found it tasteless for sure, but didn't pay much mind to it, I just thought it was sad to see. Nonetheless, tehre are people who are going to get offended, and if there were something similar elsewhere, there will be outrages and threats from other people of different origins. Point is you can't paint a broad stroke by saying you in me with everyone or these radicals or whoever, its just not in the pluralistic nature of islam or any other religions, this mentality, cultural and religion illiteracy dehumanizes people into one group or entity of whatever stereotype and that is what has happened for the radicals against the west, and now with ATW and some people it has happened with Islam, in all cases in history, its had only a dangerous effect.

 

That's really all you've got? Why am I not surprised.

 

I wish we ignored that lunatic who wants to burn Korans, but apparently everyone and the Vatican needs to say it's bad.

 

Call me when Germany has complete free speech like the United States as opposed to arbitrary limits and boundaries on what can and can't be said.

 

Maybe someone pointed this out already, but:

Whether the guy deserves a medal is debatable, but there is a huge difference in your comparisons, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.

- Newspaper prints cartoon that might offend. Those who might be offended have the ability and the right to boycott, write angry letters, or just NOT READ THE DAMN PAPER and get their news elsewhere.

- A loved one dies, be it from AIDS, war, famine, suicide, what have you. The bereaved can't very well boycott a loved ones funeral now, can they?

Your analogy is poor.

 

I am not sure if anything positive came out of this cartoon. It offended many people, hurt their feelings, and seeded even more hate and distrust. On the other side, it played into stereotypes of Muslims and worked to spread mistrust and dismissal of Muslims as a backwards people.

It's really sad. But I guess that's part of what goes with freedom. Perhaps the real test of our embracing these values would be to allow a mosque to be buiilt a few blocks from ground zero.

Why do I feel the same people who champion this guy's freedom of expression are also opposed to the mosque in lower manhattan.

I don't know, call me cynical i guess!

 

I think the analogy has more to do with the person trying to offend, rather than the reaction of the 'victims'.

*shrug* I don't know. I guess the whole topic (trying to offend a large group of people, threatening to kill someone for drawing a cartoon, giving a medal for doing said offending) seems pretty foolish to me.

 

So now this mosque guy who is standing up for freedom of religion despite threats, fires on other mosques so on and such a majority opposing him, yet he is standing up for freedom of religion by still building and both cases are offensive to different people, do you consider him courageous?

 

Everybody needs to recognize Germany's hypocrisy in relation to freedom of speech and that's why it's hilarious and ridiculous that they're handing out a prize and award based on those things and even worse, it's being presented by the country's leader.

Hi, I'm Germany, we have freedom of speech, but...

... * Insult is punishable under Section 185. Satire and similar forms of art enjoy more freedom but have to respect human dignity (Article 1 of the Basic law).
* Malicious Gossip and Defamation (Section 186 and 187). Utterances about facts (opposed to personal judgement) are allowed if they are true and can be proven. Yet journalists are free to investigate without evidence because they are justified by Safeguarding Legitimate Interests (Section 193).
* Hate speech may be punishable if against segments of the population and in a manner that is capable of disturbing the public peace (Section 130 [Agitation of the People]), including racist agitation and antisemitism.
* Holocaust denial is punishable according to Section 130 subsection 3.
* Dissemination of Means of Propaganda of Unconstitutional Organizations (Section 86).
* Use of Symbols of Unconstitutional Organizations (Section 86a) as the Swastika.
* Disparagement of
o the Federal President (Section 90).
o the State and its Symbols (Section 90a).
* Insult to Organs and Representatives of Foreign States (Section 103).
* Rewarding and Approving Crimes (Section 140).
* Casting False Suspicion (Section 164).
* Insulting of Faiths, Religious Societies and Organizations Dedicated to a Philosophy of Life if they could disturb public peace (Section 166)
* Dissemination of Pornographic Writings (Section 184).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#Germany

Okay, we don't really have freedom of speech, but we like to say we do.
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Trial Highlights Limits of Free Speech in Germany

According to prosecutors, Ernst Zündel is one of the "most active" Holocaust deniers today. He began distributing Nazi and neo-Nazi propaganda in the 1970s and has written several books praising Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. Since 1995, he has been associated with a Web site that carries his name and is one of biggest online repositories of Holocaust-denial propaganda.

But Zündel, who was born in Germany's Black Forest region, was only able to engage in such activities because he was living outside of his native county, in Canada and the United States.

Although freedom of the press and of expression is written into German law, the country is generally more wary of free speech than the US, where Zündel's dissemination of racist literature and refutation of the Holocaust -- while distasteful to most -- was perfectly legal.

In Germany, however, it was not. Zündel was deported to his native country in March 2005 after a long legal battle with the Canadian government. He found himself immediately under arrest and up against the German justice system. If the 66-year-old is found guilty by a court in Mannheim of incitement to racial hatred, libel and defamation of the memory of the dead, he faces up to five years in prison.



Constitutional rights and constraints

Article 5 of Germany's constitution, or Basic Law, enshrines the right of freedom of speech and of the press.

"Everyone has the right to freely express and disseminate their opinions orally, in writing or visually and to obtain information from generally accessible sources without hindrance," states paragraph one of the law. "Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting through audiovisual media shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship."

[O Rly Germany?]

Germany's Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Germany's "Basic Law"

But the next paragraph puts certain limits on that freedom, which were deemed necessary when the Basic Law was proclaimed in 1949, just four years after the end of World War II and the downfall of the Nazi dictatorship.

[Freedom of speech, but, but, but...]

"These rights are subject to limitations embodied in the provisions of general legislation, statutory provisions for the protection of young persons and the citizen's right to personal respect," reads the second paragraph.



German law therefore constrains press freedom, said Udo Branahl, a professor of media law at the University of Dortmund.



"The penal law code says Holocaust denial is a punishable offense," he said. "That ban limits press freedom and overrides the right to free expression in the mass media."



Germany is not the only European country to make Holocaust denial a crime. France, Italy and Austria have similar statutes on the books.



Criminal abroad, tried in Germany



So while in the US and Canada, Zündel could freely present his "evidence" that the gas chambers and crematoria of the Third Reich did not exist, in Germany, he was committing a crime that he would be tried for, even though it was not committed on German soil.



German courts have considered the severity of Holocaust in weighing free speech against individual rightsBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: German courts have considered the severity of Holocaust in weighing free speech against individual rights

The country's Federal Constitutional Court confirmed in 1994 that Holocaust revisionism is not protected speech.



"In weighing the importance of free speech against that of individual rights, courts must consider on the one hand the severity of the offense caused by Holocaust denial to the Jewish population in light of the suffering inflicted upon it by Germany," the court wrote at the time. "This court has consistently protected the personal honor of those defamed above the right of others to make patently false statements."



In the United States, where a broader definition of the freedom of expression has traditionally been considered one of the country's most foundations, this limitation on expression is often met with disapproval.



"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," goes a citation from Voltaire that's often quoted.

[Too bad Germany doesn't feel the same way Voltaire did.]

"I've spoken with a lot of Americans, and they don't understand us," said Wolfgang Wippermann, a professor at the Freie University in Berlin who studies Nazism and right-wing extremism. "I tell them, 'In your country, drug dealers also go to prison; these Holocaust deniers are like drug dealers, but dealing in mental poison'."

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1896750,00.html
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Why is it that Zundel was jailed for 3 years in Germany for expressing an opinion? It doesn't matter how silly or crazy it was. He was imprisoned for exercising his right to free speech. Why isn't he being given an award or prize for standing up for free speech? His thoughts and ideas on the Nazi Holocaust are offensive too. Do you find Zundel courageous as well?

I am in no way, shape, or form endorsing the views of people who deny any Holocaust, whether it be the Nazi, Congolese, or Native American, I'm simply demonstrating that there are arbitrary limits and boundaries on what can and can't be said in certain places in Europe like Germany. Thus, they can't claim to have complete free speech like the United States. Imagine somebody going to jail for 3 years in the US for expressing an opinion and exercising their right to free speech, no matter how ridiculous it was. Another big fail from the "master race."

As I said in my previous post, call me when Germany and all those other European countries who pay lip service to free speech and freedom of expression actually begin practicing what they preach.