Immigration Global Muslim anger at European depiction of Prophet Muhammad

nurizeko said:
The nordic countries have somewhat a germanic history so, if we want to be silly about it, britain is as good as any nation to stand by danemark, since both our ancestors, at least culturally, were germanic tribal peoples.
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aye, but there's more than that. sweden and denmark have always had a sort of brotherly comraderie. it's not all history here. we're like ultimate rivals, but if one is beaten from a tournament he will spend the rest of the tourney cheering the other on and will genuinly celebrate his victories.

we've always given eachother biased votes in the european schlager contest more based on the fact that "it's our friends and neighbours" rather than the song actully being the best. that's a trivial matter, but it somewhat shows my point.

there are other "clusters" of countries loyal to eachother like this in europe, but this one is ours.
 
Tsuyoiko said:
I agree that anyone involved in violent protests - including those holding up threatening banners - should be deported. I think that's an entirely civilised response.
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I think, in all European countries are already regulations in place to deal with foreigners that committed crimes. Holding up a banner is not a crime though, in most cases this is still covered by freedom of speech.
 
I have refrained from posting until now....

Mostly just because this subject disturbs me.
How stupid can these people be?

Obviously, resentment is running deep in the Muslim community. A cartoon doesn't just set off this kind of international disturbance without reason.

Let me pose this situation: A suicide bomber blows up a government office building in protest of the cartoons, inciting a reaction from the government against resident Muslims, which in turn produces an armed conflict...


Was the cause of this incident a cartoon, or was there something else?



Btw, does Salman Rushdie still have a price on his head?
 
bossel said:
I think, in all European countries are already regulations in place to deal with foreigners that committed crimes. Holding up a banner is not a crime though, in most cases this is still covered by freedom of speech.
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No, not really. Freedom of speech doesn't mean you can say anything you want in any circumstance. Even in the US freedom of speech is limited. For example there are laws against libel. Also one can't yell fire in a movie theater as it would lead to panick and chaos. These are incitements to violence. They fall under the same category.
 
bossel said:
I think, in all European countries are already regulations in place to deal with foreigners that committed crimes. Holding up a banner is not a crime though, in most cases this is still covered by freedom of speech.
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Thanks Bossel. I think the countries involved should deal with people in accordance with the regulations they have in place - whether that means deporting them or whatever. Sorry for showing my ignorance of international law :gomen: ;) As for the banners, I suppose it depends what they say. When I say 'threatening', I mean anything that incites violence. Does freedom of speech stretch that far?

Edit: Sorry, that overlaps a bit with Duo's comment. I'm too slow!
 
Duo said:
No, not really. Freedom of speech doesn't mean you can say anything you want in any circumstance. Even in the US freedom of speech is limited. For example there are laws against libel. Also one can't yell fire in a movie theater as it would lead to panick and chaos. These are incitements to violence. They fall under the same category.
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Incitement is an offence or a criminal act, depending on the country you're in. There are already laws & regulations covering this. I spoke of "most banners". Since I haven't seen any of the banners you refer to, I can't say what would apply (that's for the courts to judge, anyway).
IMO:
"Down with Europe!" would be OK.
"Kill caricaturist XY!" would be incitement.
"Burn Denmark!" is on the edge, but probably covered by freedom of speech.
"Kill all Danes!" is also on the edge, but could lead to prosecution.
"We hate Danes!" would be OK again.
 
Meanwhile in Russia...

Now doesn't this strike you as fanning the fires? I saw this today:

Moscow museum to exhibit Mohammed cartoons

MOSCOW, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- A Moscow museum has announced it will exhibit the entire series of cartoons of Mohammed that have caused riots throughout the Islamic world.

Yury Samodurov, director of the Sakharov Museum and Public Center, said on Russian television that the center was ready to organize a public exhibition of the cartoons satirizing the founder of Islam that originally were published in a Danish newspaper, Pravda.ru reported Monday.

"We must show the whole world that Russia goes along with Europe, that the freedom of expression is much more important for us than the dogmas of religious fanatics," Samodurov said.

The exhibition reportedly will open in March. Lawyer Yury Shmidt has said he will invite French philosopher Andre Glucksmann and French novelist Michel Houellebecq to the opening ceremony to read lectures about the threat of Islamic fundamentalism.

In 2003 the Sakharov Museum outraged many Russian Orthodox believers with the art exhibit "Be Careful -- Religion," which many felt was insulting to their beliefs.
 
bossel said:
IMO
"Down with Europe!" would be OK.
"Kill caricaturist XY!" would be incitement.
"Burn Denmark!" is on the edge, but probably covered by freedom of speech.
"Kill all Danes!" is also on the edge, but could lead to prosecution.
"We hate Danes!" would be OK again.
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IMO
"Down with Europe!" would be OK.
"Kill caricaturist XY!" would be incitement.
"Burn Denmark!" would be incitement.
"Kill all Danes!" would be incitement.
"We hate Danes!" would be OK again
 
Duo said:
Those pictures in London are simply unbeliavable. Those signs being put up in the middle of Europe like that are simply unreal. What incredible audacity. "Europe is the Cancer" "Europe you will pay".
There is a cancer in Europe alright...
How it is that foreigners, coming to a new homeland and threating it, came to be is beyond my understanding.
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Indeed, I can hardly imagine how, say Chinese immigrants to Japan would be treated if they carried the same signs in the streets of Tokyo replacing "Europe" by "Japan". I guess that they would be expelled from Japan pretty quickly. When we see that even Western tourists have been refused entry to Japan for coming and going too often between Japan and nearby Asian countries on a 3-month visa... :eek:kashii: (so as to get a new 3-month visa every time - which is not even illegal, and in any case muc less serious than public display of hateful or racist comments)
 
Perhaps they should be censored and have their rights to free speech repealed. It is much easier to win debates when the opposition is silenced.
 
sabro said:
Perhaps they should be censored and have their rights to free speech repealed. It is much easier to win debates when the opposition is silenced.
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I thought we already covered the difference between free speech and speech that could be considered as incitment. In the US there are even those who would want flag burning to be illegal. I wonder the reactions in the US if such signs were to be put up there.
 
Certainly we did. I was just pointing out the advantages of censorship. A one sided discussion avoids conflict.
 
sabro said:
Perhaps they should be censored and have their rights to free speech repealed. It is much easier to win debates when the opposition is silenced.
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"They" refers to Europeans or Muslims? The first case seems more likely to happen...
 
sabro said:
Certainly we did. I was just pointing out the advantages of censorship. A one sided discussion avoids conflict.
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It is offtopic, but isn't that a fundamental aspect of Japanese culture: avoiding conflict and harmonising opinions...
 
At least some reasonable decision from the Middle-East !

Times : Iranian paper launches Holocaust cartoon competition

Times said:
Iran’s biggest-selling newspaper has waded into the Muhammad controversy by launching a competition to find the 12 "best" cartoons about the Holocaust.

Farid Mortazavi, graphics editor for Tehran's Hamshahri newspaper, said that the deliberately inflammatory contest would test out how committed Europeans were to the concept freedom of expression.
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This should show Muslims that (most) Westerners indeed do not care about sensitive topics being the object of jokes. I am looking forward to a similar contest about hilarious catoons of Jesus or anything related to Christianity. :)

Yesterday night I watched a French movie ("Les Rois Mages"), which was a satire of biblical Magi looking for the baby Jesus. The film was set in contemporary Paris, and the Magi supposedly travelled through time, wearing ancient clothes and speaking strangely, so that everyone they met in Paris thought they were lunatics escaped from a psychiatric hospital. They even made one of the Magi deal drugs. :D I am pretty sure that if they had made such a movie about Islam, Muslims around the world would have launched a full-scale jihad against Europe. Yet, there are many such movies mocking or satirising Christianity in the so-called "Christian nations". The Life of Brian by the Monty Python is well-known, but is still pretty mild compared to what I have seen on French TV. In fact, making fun of religion, be it Christianity, Judaism or Islam (the 3 favourite, it seems), is part and parcel of modern French humour (and to a lesser extent British, like the Monty Pythons).
 
Maciamo said:
At least some reasonable decision from the Middle-East !

Times : Iranian paper launches Holocaust cartoon competition



This should show Muslims that (most) Westerners indeed do not care about sensitive topics being the object of jokes. I am looking forward to a similar contest about hilarious catoons of Jesus or anything related to Christianity. :)

Yesterday night I watched a French movie ("Les Rois Mages"), which was a satire of biblical Magi looking for the baby Jesus. The film was set in contemporary Paris, and the Magi supposedly travelled through time, wearing ancient clothes and speaking strangely, so that everyone they met in Paris thought they were lunatics escaped from a psychiatric hospital. They even made one of the Magi deal drugs. :D I am pretty sure that if they had made such a movie about Islam, Muslims around the world would have launched a full-scale jihad against Europe. Yet, there are many such movies mocking or satirising Christianity in the so-called "Christian nations". The Life of Brian by the Monty Python is well-known, but is still pretty mild compared to what I have seen on French TV. In fact, making fun of religion, be it Christianity, Judaism or Islam (the 3 favourite, it seems), is part and parcel of modern French humour (and to a lesser extent British, like the Monty Pythons).
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There is such a fundemtal difference between caricaturing a holy picture and deliberately with pure hatred intent making a caricuture of the death of 6 million people. This newspaper forgets, most of Europe is not Jewish and Europeans have never really liked jews, even after WW2. In fact most european states have problems with Israel. This act demonstrates only the extremism in Iran and their utter ignorance.
 
When the Washington post published an offensive post that depicted a quadruple amputee soldier to make a point about our defence policy, the paper got lots of letters and some people cancelled their subscription. Even the Joint chiefs wrote one collectively. The paper published it and several like it. No one burned anything down. There was no violence, not destruction, no deaths. Free speech works both ways.
 
Duo said:
There is such a fundemtal difference between caricaturing a holy picture and deliberately with pure hatred intent making a caricuture of the death of 6 million people.
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This shows the difference of respect (non-Muslim) Europeans have toward Muslims, and (fundamentalist) Muslims have toward non-Muslims. The one who claim that Europeans have crossed the line of what is acceptable with the cartoons of Mohammed, are also the ones who think that making fun of the death of millions of people is acceptable. Does that underlie hypocrisy ?

This newspaper forgets, most of Europe is not Jewish and Europeans have never really liked jews, even after WW2. In fact most european states have problems with Israel. This act demonstrates only the extremism in Iran and their utter ignorance.
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This Iranian newspaper clearly thought that Europeans liked Jews, or even that Jews, Christians, Atheists, or whatever were basically the same as they were not Muslim. In other words, their world view is reduced to the simplistic "us" (Muslims) vs "them" (non-Muslim). In the same way as I criticised the Japanese for not distinguishing between non-Japanese, many Muslims (outside Western countries, at least) cannot make the difference between the various faiths of the world. The spokesman of an Islamic organisation that I heard on CNN call European states "Christian states" clearly shows this ignorance on the Muslim side. Europe is not Christian, it is multi-faiths (and Islam is the 2nd religion in terms of population in many countries).

Nevertheless, I am glad that an Muslim paper took to decision to publish its own caricatural cartoons, so that they can finally see that the reaction in Europe (or even Israel) was nothing like their reaction to the cartoons of Mohammed. In fact, there wasn't a single demonstration (AFAIK).
 
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