Denmark plans jail term for burning Quran in public
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
And if the Daily Mail is to be believed, the upcoming ban is much broader and vaguer than just Quran burnings: "Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard told reporters that the government will present a bill that will 'prohibit the inappropriate treatment of objects of significant religious importance to a religious community'" - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12445021/Denmark-ba...
If you can't handle your fairytale book being burned you don't belong in modern society.
Avignon Performance Art Festival Features Caucasian Babies “On Skewers” - https://www.thepublica.com/france-avignon-performance-art-fe...
The far bigger problem is people who think it is appropriate to respond to political speech with terrorism and murder. Hasn't Denmark learned this lesson already, after the Mohammed cartoon controversy?
In practice Denmark could launch public campaigns aimed both at explaining what's been going on, and how ultimately it has nothing to do with Denmark.
Nobody serious really think these principles are some kind of holy Grail that should be defended at all cost without any critical judgment.
There are many democracies in Europe that restrict some kinds of speeches in one way or another, and even though the US apply them much more strictly than most countries, even there freedom of speech is restricted by laws (try sending death threats and defend yourself with “free speech ” argument).
It's just appeasement and it won't be enough.
> It's just appeasement and it won't be enough.
No. We're talking about disarming seditious groups that want to leverage Islamic terrorism as part of their accession to power. It has nothing to do with appeasement (let's continue to assassinate Islamist leadership all day), it's about neutralizing another (arguably bigger) threat.
How far do you go before you realize it never ends?
For now the legislators targeted one specific way, but if they diversify their methods the law will adapt and generalize. There's just nothing to win in appeasing fascists who complain about their freedom of speech, we already know where it leads to https://i.redd.it/3b470c0htra61.jpg
Was Charlie Hebdo "attempting to trigger terror attacks"? Was Kurt Westergaard trying to incite his own death? How about Salman Rushdie? If you're just going to say "doing something which pisses off terrorists is illegal" then I hope you're prepared to convert, because that's what it would take.
> For now the legislators targeted one specific way, but if they diversify their methods the law will adapt and generalize.
That's the problem right there, it's a genuinely short walk to anti-blasphemy laws.
Nobody says the Islamists aren't the baddies, but the one trying to help them recruit to push their agenda aren't any better. And cooperation between those two faction is nothing new either, the guy who sold the weapons involved in Charlie Hebdo's terror attack was also a far right member[1].
[1] https://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/justice/proces-des-atten...
Regardless, he was an arms dealer and police informant long before that terror attack. I would not call selling arms without discrimination "cooperation".
- he doesn't claim to be “far left”, he claims to be moderate left (“I'm from the left” “I abhor all extremists”) (don't get confused by the “Communist” word later in that sentence, the French Communist party has been a center left party for more than 40 years now, and a former head of the PCF (Robert Hue) was supporting Macron in the last two elections.
- it's not just a testimony of the police officer, he's being presented in the whole article as being a supremacists influential member.
> à la fois figure de l'extrême droite lilloise
And later in the text:
> Mais cette figure des milieux identitaires du Nord
This isn't just political affiliation, it means it's a well-known/prominent member of far right in the city of Lille.
Also, this is just one article, this topic has received a lot of coverage in the French press, providing lots of additional details about his political background.[1]
Overall you should probably avoid going full “well actually” when discussing internal politics of a foreign country with one of its citizen.
[1]: for instance you could check this one: https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/actualites/article/qui-est-cla...
No wonder people in western democracies dislike the idea of Islam spreading there if its followers include such unenlightened, aggressive snowflakes (not everyone yadda yadda).
Like, really? Try living in Nigeria, Indonesia, or any other Muslim-majority country where being accused of cursing Mohammed can get you stoned and burned on the streets and then come back and preach to me about the religion of peace.
Just last year, a young Nigerian Christian girl was stoned to death and burned BY HER MUSLIM CLASSMATES who accused her of insulting Mohammed. If you think people who think like this have a place in civil society, I don't even know what to tell you.
On the other hand, deal with it.
Free speech is important and we should protect the right to criticize things and to debate, but burning books is not that. It's childish, offensive and seriously carries no informational content other than "fuck you".
Especially in an age it's almost rude to not put your pronouns in email signature. It's important to be nice and considerate to trans people, but OK to shit on 1.8bn people?
I have nothing in common with Muslims / Arabs otherwise.
Which is probably why you don't see the need to allow disrespecting symbols. That is a classic means of protest, whether it's a flag, a picture, a book, or something else. It is meant to get attention, and yet harms no one.
But disrespecting peoples closely held beliefs is just unnecessary. Reasonable people can disagree, about anything really, and anything can be said, politely. Portraying prophet Mohammed as a terrorist, or burning books, is just hate speech. The latter is literally what the Nazis did.
Criticize whoever you want, with respect. Not this nonsense.
How dare you call them 'beliefs'? Are you implying that they're not facts? You're telling every Muslim on the planet that they're subscribing to fairy tales.
Hyperbole aside, I don't want my tax money going towards paying police to break up 'unnecessary' demonstrations.
Roughly 50% of the tech folks I interact with (at minor companies like Salesforce and Amazon) list them.
But tell me more about my “weird” “woke” (as if you can define the word) bubble. Because of course it’s not that you live in a bubble. You’re the main character. Or whatever.
I’m so tired of this pervasive, self-important bullshit. Grow up.
If that's your argument, you should know that saying "fuck you" in the US is, broadly speaking, a protected free speech right. Including for childish, offensive and information-free reasons. This means there is plenty of case history to test your analogy.
It is a protected free speech right, for example, to say "fuck you" to the cops - https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxdbqz/saying-fuck-the-polic... .
It is a protected free speech right to post a sign in your yard saying "Fuck Biden and fuck you for voting for him", even if that's childish, offensive, carries no informational content, and shits on 81 million people. https://freespeechproject.georgetown.edu/tracker-entries/jud... (sign at https://www.thefire.org/sites/default/files/styles/860x484/p... )
You can read more about how "fuck" fits into the US concept of free speech at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohen_v._California with Cohen v. California (wearing a jacket saying "Fuck the Draft" in a courthouse was free speech) and its followup cases. In particular note how Blackmun, in dissent, said wearing the jacket 'was not speech but conduct (an "absurd and immature antic")'.
So if that's your argument, you've already lost ... in the US.
Denmark, of course, is another country.
> it's almost rude to not put your pronouns in email signature
Wow! I don't know what sort of people you associate with, but almost none of my email signatures have that. I just checked - four distinct people over the last year, all from a librarian list I'm on.
The pronouns thing was a hyperbola.
But from a pragmatic point of view, free speech is a tool. It is useful protecting it up to the point it is, well, useful, but not beyond.
It is important that everyone can get their point across. But in any way? Surely not. If a billionaire decides to blast his podcast from every street corner, you'd be right to be annoyed. Putting it online suffices, and going beyond is harassment.
Further, even if you are happy with an absolutist free speech agenda, it doesn't mean everyone is, and I can't see why your approach should be imposed on others.
People can't tell if you mean literally die fighting for their use to say "fuck you", or if you mean figuratively people shouldn't take the topic to court to defend their free speech right to say "fuck you."
catboybotnet clearly wasn't making arguing for absolutist free speech - see the "unless it turns to harassment" exception. I'm sure catboybotnet also supports time-place-manner free speech exceptions, but didn't think include all the exceptions.
Here's the point. Saying 'fuck you' is already, broadly speaking, covered under free speech protection in the US. Since you think burning the Koran is equivalent to saying "fuck you", then burning the Koran is covered under free speech rights.
If you think "Free speech is important" but you don't recognize that saying "fuck you" is free speech, then there's a fundamental difference between your concept of free speech and the one I'm familiar with - the one in US law.
You need to explain why people should care about your non-standard definition.
1) not "holy enshrined right", and I never claimed that. I wrote "broadly speaking" for a reason. There are the usual time-place-manner restrictions, minors may have limits that adults do not, etc.
2) not literally "a hill worth dying on", because we're only talking jail terms at worst.
3) For the people who have pushed this up to the state and national supreme courts, yes, it was worth it.
Side comment. Most of the far right crap you see on the internet in the US doesn't smell homegrown if you get my drift.
And yes I know this is about specific Danish laws, still I don't see what is so noble in burning Quran that deserves legal protection.
If you don't like the book, then use your words.
Your blanket statement "Burning something is destructive and demeaning [expression]" is clearly wrong. Consider Zozobra ("Old Man Gloom"), an effigy burned during the annual Fiestas de Santa Fe in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Quoting the Wikipedia entry at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zozobra :
> As its name suggests, it embodies gloom and anxiety; by burning it, people destroy the worries and troubles of the previous year in the flames. Anyone with an excess of gloom is encouraged to write down the nature of their gloom on a slip of paper and leave it in the "gloom box" found in City of Santa Fe Visitors' Centers in the weeks leading up to the burn. Participants can also add documents on the day of the burning, up until 8 pm MT, at a "gloom tent" in the venue where they can add to the marionette's stuffing. Legal papers, divorce documents, mortgage pay-offs, parking tickets and even a wedding dress –– all have found their way into Zozobra to go up in smoke. At the festival, glooms from the gloom box are placed at Zozobra's feet to be burned alongside it.
Burning in this case is destructive, yes, and a form of emotional relief.
There's also police present, to ensure the burning goes well, and people leave in high spirits. That burning has been around for over 50 years, with a lot of public good.
Or, consider this example from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_burning#Sikh_book_burning :
> Sikh religion, any copies of their sacred book, Guru Granth Sahib, which are too badly damaged to be used, and any printer's waste which bears any of its text, are cremated. This ritual is called an Agan Bhet, and it is similar to the ritual which is performed when a deceased Sikh is cremated
Do you really want to argue that's demeaning, and that no public good has come from it?
As I pointed out at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31185643 , book burnings are pretty common in the US. I quoted one source that during the 1980s and 1990s, "church youth groups coordinated book burnings and music bonfires to purge their world of evil art." https://religionnews.com/2020/06/17/evangelicals-perfected-c...
This was constitutionally protected free speech in service of their constitutionally protected religious beliefs. And you want to make it so the police couldn't protect them when exercising their rights?
The free speechers are asking for the opposite: this is a situation in which the government should not intervene.
when the government shouldn't intervene? when there's hate speech against Muslims or when the Muslims retaliate?
Speech? Do it freely.
Retaliation? Go to jail.
Of course there are huge caveats to these.
For instance, doxing is speech which I don't think should be protected ("Joe was was a member of the Nazi party and he lives at this address"). There's no debate or formulation of ideas in it. But if you said "All former Nazi party members should be deported". It's hateful but I think it should be protected: it's political, it's abstract, it can be debated.
I understand the stupidity in today's internet is out of proportions, but Muslims themselves burn Quoran to dispose of it. The sole intention of the losers here is to insult a large group of people. The retaliation is coming in several forms including the call to bankrupt such miningless countries and that's a good thing. The exact reason why Denmark and Sweden are banning acts of hate speech against Muslims.
Now you are writing that (selective) hate speech should be free and protected and all retaliations should be banned.. which is funny because it's not how the world works and you don't get to dictate the rules.