[Previous entry: "Avatar race and attractiveness discrimination has effect on attitudes"] [Next entry: "New teenage trend to be as sexually promiscuous as possible in Chile"]

09/13/2008: "Criminalizing Criticism of Islam"

There are strange happenings in the world of international jurisprudence that do not bode well for the future of free speech. In an unprecedented case, a Jordanian court is prosecuting 12 Europeans in an extraterritorial attempt to silence the debate on radical Islam.

The prosecutor general in Amman charged the 12 with blasphemy, demeaning Islam and Muslim feelings, and slandering and insulting the prophet Muhammad in violation of the Jordanian Penal Code. The charges are especially unusual because the alleged violations were not committed on Jordanian soil.

Among the defendants is the Danish cartoonist whose alleged crime was to draw in 2005 one of the Muhammad illustrations that instigators then used to spark Muslim riots around the world. His co-defendants include 10 editors of Danish newspapers that published the images. The 12th accused man is Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, who supposedly broke Jordanian law by releasing on the Web his recent film, "Fitna," which tries to examine how the Quran inspires Islamic terrorism.

Neither Denmark nor the Netherlands will turn over its citizens to Interpol, as the premise of Jordan's extradition request is an affront to the very principles that define democracies. It is thus unlikely that any Western country would do so, either. But there is no guarantee for the defendants' protection if they travel to countries that are more sympathetic to the Jordanian court.

[ Western countries are fast becoming Islamic, with even the arch bishop of Canterbury in England seeing the inevitability of sharia law in the UK. It is legally questionable even in these western countries to criticise Islam, and this is set to become stricter - until enough people decide to stand up for their own culture. ]

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB122099204692716155-lMyQjAxMDI4MjEwMTkxOTEyWj.html

Replies: 1 Comment

on Wednesday, September 24th, NZE said

you must differentiate between criticism and insult

Because each has his idol.

if I insult to Jesus Christ, Karl Marx, Hitler, Saddam, or whatever, there will be a people who do not like this because in the end the person insulted is something for these people therefore, so insulting is not criticize.