Sunday, July 22, 2012
Free speech against Islam very shaky in Germany
A recent Legal Project article authored by me concerned a German court's fining (pending appeal) of Michael Mannheimer for his condemnation of Islam as an authoritarian and aggressive belief system. However, on a more positive note, as reported again by the conservative German website Politically Incorrect (PI), another German court, on June 26, 2012, in the city of Darmstadt, rejected a call to prohibit a book decried by a German Muslim in a civil complaint as an assault upon his freedom of religion.
Source
Since most of the relevant documents are in German, I guess I should sum up. Basically, two rather nutty people issued declarations denouncing Islam. The real nutcase got off but the only slightly nutty guy was convicted.
So that does not really tell us much about how a scholarly comment about Islam in the context of political debate would fare but it seems possible that it would be the most heavily fined of all.
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3 comments:
Europe's "freedom" of expression is always conditional on what you say, when you say it, who it is said to, and who is saying it. It must meet the approval of the local, then national authorities.
No free speech under Socialism
If you define or regard all of "Europe" as under "Socialism", then you would have to do the same for the United States of America.
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