Germany: an anti-racist academic faces prosecution for questioning whether court negligence could have been a contributory factor in the case of Marwa al-Sherbini, who was stabbed to death in a Dresden courtroom in July 2009. Dr Sabine Schiffer, Director of the Institute for Media Responsibility in Erlangen, is accused of slandering a police officer; she has been summonsed to appear before Erlangen Municipal Court on 24 March and, if convicted, could face a 6,000 Euros fine or two months imprisonment. There is also a petition in support of Dr Sabine Schiffer and calling for a full investigation into Marwa al-Sherbini’s death.
Latest Updates: freedom of speech RSS
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plimfix
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thabet
Alan Dershowitz moans about how Britain’s libel laws (which do need fixing) are being used by ‘radical Islamists’ to silence critics.
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aziz
Ireland has a new anti-blasphemy law. And if that wasnt bad enough, it seems to have been drafted as a precaution against Danish-style insults to Islam.
I dunno whats worse – muslims who think Islam needs to be defended, or non-muslims who think Islam needs to be defended. Probably the former, because they at least should know that Islam is eternal.
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johnpi
Malaysian blogger defamation ’shocker.’
A politician named Zaid Ibrahim who made a name for himself as a defender of speech freedom for Malaysian bloggers is now suing a blogger in that country for defamation.
One blogger wrote:
…if this is ruled as defamation, then we’ll see at least 10 such cases being filed at the courts daily!
In the ‘offending’ post, blogger A Kadir Jasin compares Ibrahim to a cartoon character named ‘Hurricane Hattie.’
No malice intended, but the Parti Keadilan Rakyat’s new wunder kinder, Senator Zaid Ibrahim reminds me of the cartoon character Hurricane Hattie.
In the comic strip The Born Loser, by Art Sansom, which started in 1965, Hurricane Hattie was the mischievous girl next door, who delighted in menacing pretty much any adult she encountered, especially the main character, Brutus Thornapple.
Wherever she went in Thornapple’s household, she created havoc. So is the Umno-nominated Kelantan Senator. Wherever he goes, controversy is not far behind.
Wow, that’s rough stuff. Ibrahim better get out of politics if that’s the way they roll in Malaysia.
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johnpi
Study: Religion repressed in third of all nations holding 70 percent of the world’s population.
People living in a third of all countries are restricted from practicing religion freely, either because of government policies and laws or hostile acts by individuals or groups, according to a study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center, “Global Restrictions on Religion.”
That amounts to 70 percent of the globe’s population, since some of the most restrictive countries are very populous.
Of the world’s 25 most populous countries, citizens in Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and India live with the most restrictions when both measures are taken into account, the study found.
“Where those two come together is where it’s most intense,” said Brian Grim, senior researcher at the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life.
The United States, Brazil, Japan, Italy, South Africa and the United Kingdom have the least amount of restrictions on religious practices when measured by both government infringement and religion-based violence or harassment, according to the study.
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buzz
US Religious Freedom Report Hits Speech Curbs
By David Gollust
State Department
26 October 2009U.S. State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report 2009
The U.S. State Department’s annual report on world-wide religious freedom, released Monday, was critical of what it says are international efforts to limit free speech in the name of combating defamation of religion. The Organization of the Islamic Conference, or OIC, has been pushing such anti-defamation measures in U.N. bodies.The State Department report says the United States deplores actions that show disrespect for religious traditions, including Islam.
But it says the broad anti-defamation measures being sought by the Islamic Conference would have the effect of curbing debate about religious issues and should be discarded in favor of outreach and government defense of religious freedom and free speech.
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thabet
Superior Civilisation!
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thabet
‘Letting our actions speak for themselves’:
No details of that alleged activity were offered. Journalists often make contact with opposition forces in the course of their work. Last November, the Central Criminal Court of Iraq ruled that Jassam is not a security threat and asked the Americans to release him. The American response has been to politely ignore the court and keep the photographer in prison as his first anniversary in jail approaches.
Hardly new though. Jassam joins journalists like Sami Al-Hajj (held for six years without charge in Guantanamo where he was questioned not about terrorism, but about Al-Jazeera), or Bilal Hussein (held for two years without charge in Iraq by the US military) in having been held without charge for extended periods of time by the US.
Expect some loud screeching in the comments from the resident Obama cultist…
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thabet
Yale University and Yale University Press barred the author of The Cartoons That Shook the World from including the actual cartoons in his book:
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thabet
Protesters detained in the Pakistani portion of Kashmir:
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thabet
The BBC paid £45,000 in damages to Muhammad Abdul Bari, the Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain, for comments made on Question Time by one of the panellists (Charles Moore).
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thabet
Three Muslim men were jailed for up to four and a half years for an arson attack on the home of the publisher of The Jewel of Medina.
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johnpi
In Egypt, police shut down Iran solidarity march.
An attempt by Egyptians to march in solidarity with Iranian protesters and to honor Neda-Agha Soltan — whose death earlier this month made her the icon of Iran’s opposition movement — was halted by security forces in Cairo over the weekend.
The Cairo rally was called by democracy activist and opposition leader Ayman Nour and was scheduled to be held in Talaat Harb square in the Egyptian capital’s downtown. But dozens of security vehicles surrounded Nour and his fellow protesters upon their arrival at the square. Police arrested four protesters belonging to Nour’s party and prevented reporters from covering the event.
“It is very ironic how Egyptian authorities, who earlier expressed their dismay against the Iranian regime’s oppressive means of handling protesters, are now banning us from a march that shares the same perspective,” Nour said at a news conference at his party’s headquarters. “Such acts only prove one thing and it is that the Egyptian and Iranian regimes are quite the same when it comes to their autocratic path and rejection of democracy.”
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johnpi
Turns out the story about Iran banning the football players for wearing green armbands may have been BS…
The head of the Iranian parliament’s sports committee on Thursday denied claims that four Iranian football players had been banned for wearing a green arm and wrist band in support of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.
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johnpi
Iranian authorities have taken revenge on four of the six players who wore the green wrist bands in the world cup qualifying game held last Wednesday in South Korea, the Guardian reports.
“According to the pro-government newspaper Iran, four players – Ali Karimi, 31, Mehdi Mahdavikia, 32, Hosein Ka’abi, 24 and Vahid Hashemian, 32 – have been “retired” from the sport after their gesture in last Wednesday’s match against South Korea in Seoul”.
“The fate of the other two players who wore the wristbands is unknown. None of the team members were given back their passports upon returning to Tehran after the match.”
The four players have also been banned from speaking to any media sources.
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johnpi
A partial list of your brothers and sisters in blogging/reporting arrested in Iran at this link and this link.
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johnpi
The epic fail/total backfire media policy of Saudi Arabia during the Obama visit.
Journalists traveling with Obama warned by Saudis: Report only on Obama or else.
The Saudi government is permitting journalists accompanying President Obama entry into the country without a visa or the usual customs procedures. While in Saudi Arabia, therefore, journalists are expressly prohibited from leaving the hotel or engaging in any journalistic activities outside of coverage of the POTUS visit. Those who do so risk arrest and detention by Saudi authorities.
That’s like waiving a red flag at a bull: The media is going to belabor negative information about the kingdom because this kind of thing gets their back up. As you see more and more negative reports about Saudi Arabia over the next week, remember this.
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johnpi
Pentagon plans new arm to wage wars in cyberspace.
The US military is stepping up preparations to conduct both offensive and defensive computer warfare. I guess if we get too uppity here at Talk Islam, we might be in trouble.
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johnpi
Another ‘Satanist’ bust, this time in Iran. It was some kind of rock music gathering.
Concert goers are accused of “sucking blood” and “bowing to Satan.”
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thabet
The UAE’s telecoms regulator has ordered du to unblock the Johann Hari article critical of Dubai.
(That’s what you call ’silencing’.)
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thabet
Geert Wilders will be prosecuted in Holland for ‘inciting hatred and discrimination’.
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johnpi
Committee officials arrested more than 2,000 sorcerers in different parts of the kingdom, mostly from African countries.
I would infer from this that Africans traveling in Saudi Arabia are more likely to be harassed and accused by the muttawa, which seems completely arbitrary and racist, if you look at the prevalence of sorcery in other predominantly Muslim nations.
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thabet
Stupid fools jailed over attempt to firebomb a publisher’s home in London:
Abbas Taj, 31, a minicab driver from Forest Gate, East London, had claimed he was simply giving two other men a lift to the house in an exclusive square in Islington, North London.
The other men, Ali Beheshti, 41, and Abrar Mirza, 23, had already pleaded guilty to conspiracy to recklessly damaging property and endangering life following the attack at 2.30am on Saturday September 27 last year.
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johnpi
“[Mrs Sturges] frightened Nabilah into handing over money and the threat was that if she did not do so, she would be in serious trouble with the police. It was completely false but she engineered Nabilah into believing it.”
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thabet
It’s not ok to criticise Christianity in Germany if you’re Muslim:
The state of Hesse had planned to hand its 45,000-euro (61,000-dollar) prize this July jointly to a Jew, a Muslim, a Catholic and a Lutheran to honour the cultural achievements of the monotheistic religions.
But Catholic Cardinal Karl Lehmann of Mainz and Peter Steinacker, former head of the Lutheran church of Hesse and Nassau, objected to sharing the state culture prize with Navid Kermani, an Iranian-born author.
Kermani had begun an article about a crucifix, a standard Christian image that depicts Jesus Christ in an agonizing death nailed to a wooden cross, with, ‘I’d express my personal rejection of the theology of the cross frankly with ‘blasphemy and idolatry’.’
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johnpi
Asma Uddin at altMuslim may be engaging in false equivalency in this statement:
Although the UK is not a supporter of the Defamation Resolution, its use of visa controls to punish those who have expressed “extreme” views is based on the same communal theory of rights as the Resolution. The idea behind both is that individual rights – such as the right to free speech – should be curtailed for the sake of public sentiment.
Putting aside Jacqui Smith’s repulsive Reaganesque rhetoric, I don’t see a standard of ‘communal values’ or “public sentiment” being applied by the UK government, but instead a more narrow standard of violence prevention. The specific justifications cited in her article for the various individuals who have been banned concerns incitements to violence:
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razib, murtad fitri
the taha abdul-basser story in forward:
Abdul-Basser’s e-mail was circulated through an e-mail list and subsequently posted April 3 on the blog Talk Islam, from which it was picked up by several other blogs. On April 14, The Harvard Crimson, a student-run daily, published an article about the controversy. One week later, on April 21, it remained the paper’s most viewed, most commented-upon article online.
they quote aziz….
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thabet
The US drops out of Durban II.
The hypocrisies of all sides are self-evident.
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johnpi
On the listservs, there is an uproar developing over comments made by Harvard Muslim Chaplain Taha Abdul-Basser (his blogger profile here) in response to an email query about apostasy stating that apostates should be killed – though they can only be killed by a legitimate “Muslim governmental authority and can not be performed by non-state, private actors.”
Concerned Muslims who are Harvard alums (or not) are being encouraged to write to Harvard and complain. Some are calling for his removal. Below the fold, the message fragment that is being forwarded around:
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thabet
Instances of ‘threats to free speech‘ pass by without much fuss.
