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European Human Rights Court Backs Sharia Blasphemy Law
- Thread starter icehorse
- Start date
Estro Felino committed suicide after he saw Vouthon's new avatar
After marching earlier this month with 700,000 of my fellow Remainer Brits in favour of the European Union, liberal values and internationalism, I have been galvanised into finally nailing my colours to the mast and becoming more vocal about what I believe.
The Nationalists and Nativists have for too long been the passionate, loud-mouthed, driven crowd. No longer.
The Trumps, the Marine Le Pens, the Farages, the Orbans, the Erdogans, the Putins, have had their day. It's our time now.
And it starts with Brexit being overturned by the British people in a second referendum.
In terms of this particular thread, though, whenever people conflate the ECHR and the ECJ as a stick to beat the EU with, its a red rag to a bull with me.
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This has nothing to with Sharia or blashpemy, so stop lying. Those laws against denigrating religion are old laws created to stop movements like Nazism from coming back.
Regardless of how one feels about this particular judgment and I recognise that it is a thorny issue we are dealing with here (the ECHR, for its part, claimed to recognise that freedom of religion did not exempt people from expecting criticism or denial of their religion as an explicit clarification in the case, which has been overlooked in most news reports), I will insist upon the fact that it provides no sufficient grounds for attacking other European institutions that have no connection to the ECHR.
That just tells me that certain posters are anathema to anything European or "liberal" (i.e. anything that isn't reactionary, nationalistic and right-wing) and are simply looking for an opportunity to bash the EU, even where it isn't implicated.
That just tells me that certain posters are anathema to anything European or "liberal" (i.e. anything that isn't reactionary, nationalistic and right-wing) and are simply looking for an opportunity to bash the EU, even where it isn't implicated.
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GoodbyeDave
Well-Known Member
Saint Frankenstein has hit the nail on the head.
1. The court decision was nothing to do with Shariah, but simply confirming that Austria has the right to decide what people were entitled to say in plublic lectures in their own territory.
2. No European country has a "right" of free speech like you have in the USA. If inflamatory talk were restricted there, you might not get so many domestic terrorists, like the anti-Semite who's just attacked a synagogue.
3. The Gatestone Institute is a well-known provider of far-right fake news. It's also based in New York, so what right have they to tell us what to do in Europe?
1. The court decision was nothing to do with Shariah, but simply confirming that Austria has the right to decide what people were entitled to say in plublic lectures in their own territory.
2. No European country has a "right" of free speech like you have in the USA. If inflamatory talk were restricted there, you might not get so many domestic terrorists, like the anti-Semite who's just attacked a synagogue.
3. The Gatestone Institute is a well-known provider of far-right fake news. It's also based in New York, so what right have they to tell us what to do in Europe?
Indeed, Gatestone is like an academic front for Breitbart and Steve Bannon.
Completely biased, non-objective commentary motivated by a partisan outlook (and in my opinion a bigoted one at that).
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Father Heathen
Veteran Member
Do things really need to be one extreme or the other, though? Can't we find a sane, rational balance?
We do have a limitless right of free speech.
Art 21 Ita. Constitution
Anyone has the right to freely express their thoughts in speech, writing, or any other form of communication. The press may not be subjected to any authorisation or censorship
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
So if a vile person commits vile deeds, but also happens to be revered by a lot of people, then the truth should be silenced to spare people's fee-fees?
The fact that people are willing to cower and concede to bullies rather than stand up for free speech is pathetic.
A sane, rational balance cannot be had while there are yet people who peddle anti-semitic myths about George Soros allegedly having a hand in micromanaging "liberal plots" worldwide.
It cannot be had while a president sits in the White House who decries press freedom simply because it is inconvenient for him, and his excessive vanity, to be subjected to criticism and scrutiny from independent organisations.
And it cannot be had while there are people demanding that the UK hurtle towards a hard exit from its largest trading partner after 45 years of unfettered access to the world's largest market, despite the fact that the 2016 Brexit referendum said not a whit about the type of exit we should pursue and certainly wasn't about impoverishing the nation and making us stockpile medicine because we won't be able to import the 37 million medicine kits we have thus far imported from the EU after we leave on WTO terms without a deal, simply because Brexiteers hate Europe and Brussels (so damn the UK economy!).
Yes, the 'other side' is hardly guileless either and there is a sore need for old-fashioned consensus-building and compromise across the political spectrum, rather than intransigent brinkmanship, but I am personally well passed the point of seeing any moral equivalence between the two. I used to be far less partisan, a floating fence-siter able to sympathise with elements of both, but I have increasingly grown dismayed by the rhetoric and actions of the right these days.
Nationalist populists have made a mess of the Western world in numerous countries of late and passively watching hasn't helped stem the tide.
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Father Heathen
Veteran Member
That may be the case, but it looks like it's being used to censor valid critique and scrutiny.
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
Noted and pitied.
The notion of surrendering a measure of freedom in exchange for some sense of security is disgusting and sets an Orwellian precedent. Education and discourse, not censorship, is the key to combating bigotry and violence.
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
So the only way to combat a radical fringe right is with a radical fringe left? We can't counteract lunacy with reason, but rather with equal and opposite lunacy?
GoodbyeDave
Well-Known Member
I doubt that libel and slander are legal in Italy!
Since the US has little education and discourse and a lot of bigotry and violence, I think you need to put your own house in order before lecturing us.
Different societies have different standards for what they consider to be acceptable. Western European countries tend to be very wary of speech denigrating minorities, for obvious reasons.
I haven't suggested that the answer is Marxism or anarchism or extreme identity politics or whatever a "radical fringe left" means. Who are these radical fringe leftists? Can you identify some prominent examples for me?
Rather, I advocate a broad alliance of centrists - centre-left and centre-right - as the anti-Brexit movement here in the UK is doing, uniting Conservatives, Labour politicians, Greens, Scottish Nationalists and Liberal Democrats in common cause.
The radical left here in Britain would, I suppose, be Corbyn supporters ('Momentum' as they call their movement) and I am not a supporter of their political programme or general approach to policymaking or political action.
We have politicians who have said the darnedest things about that religion.
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I don't know enough to have an educated opinion about the situations and attitudes in Europe.
But wasn't your time for the last 20 years or so?
Tom
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
My point exactly, dumdum. If we had more education and discourse we would have less bigotry and violence.
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
But how is valid critique and scrutiny a form of denigration? Nothing should be considered beyond reproach simply due to mob mentality (and the fear thereof).