We have previously discussed the trend in the West toward an international blasphemy standard and prosecutions for insulting religion (here, and here, and here and here and here and here and here and and here and here and here and here). Now, one of Spain’s best known underground artists is facing a year in jail for a 54-second film that he did in 1978 that a Catholic group charges is insulting to them and their faith. Javier Krahe’s “how to cook Jesus Christ” was a brief satire based on a cooking show.
The Catholic legal association, the Centro Juridico Tomas Moro, has demanded that the artist be sent to prison for the crime of “offending religious feelings” with the brief movie.
Krahe is the ultimate example of a social critic targeted for his free speech and beliefs. Krahe has spent his life exposing the crimes and hypocrisy of the establishment. Now he could be jailed for a film that he did 34 year ago.
The West has steadily yielded to the demands of religious groups that free speech must be curtailed in the name of faith. At the same time, West governmental and religious leaders have denounced agnostics and atheists as one of the greatest threat facing the West (here and here and here and here). President Obama and Hillary Clinton have been facilitating this trend by working with Muslim nations to develop an international standard allowing for the prosecution of those who insult religion. The Administration has drawn a dangerous line with Muslim countries in first supporting the concept of an international blasphemy standard. As I have mentioned before, the efforts of the Obama Administration to work with countries like Egypt on an international blasphemy standard is a threat to free speech around the world. After first supporting an international blasphemy standard, the Administration sought to get Egypt and other countries to adopt the Brandenburg standard as the basis for such prosecutions. These cases show the mentality of countries pushing for a “balance” between free speech and religion. It also shows why the use of the Brandenburg standard is so dangerous in the hands of such officials who view free speech as the cause of imminent violence. Because any joke or image of the Prophet can trigger violence, the standard is immediately satisfied in countries like Egypt, which can then claim some legal legitimacy under the standard created with the United States.
The prosecution of Krahe represent one of the most serious attacks on free speech this year. Spain has always been a country divided between the powers of orthodoxy and free speech — a division shown most vividly and tragically during regime of Franco. The Church was accused of being a key ally to Franco and an enabler of the abuses that occurred during his reign. Now a leading Catholic organization wants to use the state to punish those who insult its faith as a criminal act. The free speech community needs to organize internationally against the renewed blasphemy prosecutions worldwide. Free speech is the ultimate protection — not the threat — to free exercise. Free speech is often being denied in the name of tolerance and pluralism through hate speech and discrimination laws. Spain is one of those countries that puts aside such niceties and enforces a crime of insulting religion or blasphemy.
Ironically, Krahe has spent his life using his art to try to educate people of the dangers and hypocrisy of the establishment and orthodoxy. His own trial may now serve that purpose. The artist has become his art — a tragic irony to say the least.
Source: Independent
bigfatmike
1, June 4, 2012 at 11:50 am
@Woosty’s still a Cat “but we COULD put the pope AND the president of your choice on top of a cake like an ornament and say ‘WELL DONE!’”
Wouldn’t that violate separation of church and state?
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only if they are Catholic….and the cake is uranium 😉
OR
if they both eat from the SAME cake….. 😉
Until they stop their priests from pedophiling we should ban the entry of catolic priests and officials into the United States. Put them on the same list as al qaeda.
Centro Juridico Tomas Moro?
They should identify themselves by a more accurate name.
Perhaps Centro Juridico Tomas de Torquemada.
bigfatmike
1, June 4, 2012 at 10:45 am
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no, I don’t think so….
“Any chance we can put the pope on prison for insulting our intelligence?”
but I’ll trade ya 1 witch burn for a death row inmate martyr…or we could up the ante and go Salem for My Lai???? 😉
but we COULD put the pope AND the president of your choice on top of a cake like an ornament and say ‘WELL DONE!’
[now THAT”S propaganda ….. 🙂 ]
@Woosty’s still a Cat “but we COULD put the pope AND the president of your choice on top of a cake like an ornament and say ‘WELL DONE!'”
Wouldn’t that violate separation of church and state?
But I sort of like the part about “WELL DONE”. It fits in very well with:
‘Mission Accomplished’ and
“Heck of a Job, Brownie’
Now I know there will be some ‘nay sayers’ out there, so the key is to keep saying it again and again – sort of like a mantra, ooops, maybe I should not have said mantra with the Pope and all.
‘Well Done, mission accomplished, heck of a job brownie… well done, mission accomplished, heck of a job brownie…well done…mission accomplished… ‘
Jill
1, June 4, 2012 at 10:30 am
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yup and well said!
mespo727272
1, June 4, 2012 at 8:50 am
Woosty:
“what the hell is this??? ‘the Centro Juridico Tomas Moro’”
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Just another profession with institutional myopia trying to protect their own from any sort of accountability for their obvious wrongdoings. But why should we condemn them? Do we have all the facts?
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Mespo;
oh dear, I’d offer you a hot beverage but this seems more apropo….
(and I still don’t know what that thingy is….)
I don’t advocate the policy. But it would not be so bad if there were reciprocity.
Any chance we can put the pope on prison for insulting our intelligence?
Let see they are asking for a year of prison because of less than a minute of offensive material.
Let me calculate, I ‘m being generous here, lets start say 1500 to 2012. What the heck, lets just call it 500 years * 365 days/yr (forget the leap year stuff), * 24 hrs/day * 60 min/hr = 262,800,000 min.
So if the Catholics want one year of prison for each minute of insult, I am good with that.
As soon as they surrender the pope to 262,800,000 years of prison for 262,800,000 minutes of insulting my intelligence. And I am being very generous here.
I think I could make a reasonable case for add on’s and up charges for burning at the stake, crushing under stone, abusive priests, disappearing children (especially girls who were considered a bit too wild [1]), etc, etc. I am not even going to start with the crusades.
I am not vindictive. I will be satisfied with.. let just call it, 262 million years for 262 million minutes of insulting behavior.
I would be willing to let each person speak the truth he understands. That seems like a pretty good policy to me.
But if they insist on a year of prison for each minute of insult then I am good with 262 million years. My only question is ‘should this apply only to the pope or are the cardinals, bishops, and priests in this too.’
How about you? What do you think.
[1] Does anyone remember a book from the past several years that documented church policy of taking misbehaving children, usually girls considered promiscuous, and holding them in religious institutions supposedly for their own good. Apparently, sometimes their own families did not know what had happened to them, where they had been taken. There were reports of children growing to adulthood, living and dying, never leaving the control of the church that had taken them. This particular book I believe was based on the church in Ireland. But apparently the practice was not uncommon throughout Europe.
My recollection that the story of this book was not even seriously disputed – it actually happened!!!
In any normal civilized society would this be considered kidnapping, false imprisonment etc, etc. In any normal society wouldn’t we be talking about prosecution, on going criminal conspiracy, reparations?
I am not against Catholics. Some Catholics raise some of the most fundamental questions we know. I am against anyone who attempts to restrict the freedom of others on the basis of their own private acts, their acts with other consenting adults, what they say or what the think.
For a society to function in freedom and justice there can be no idea, no person which is above criticism. Any time there is power, there is the possibility of abuse. Most followers of a religion, including political cults, do not want to hear criticism or uncomfortable truths about their leadership. They revile critics and need to suppress the truth in order to maintain belief.
For a civil judicial system to help suppress the truth is the opposite of justice. It is the antithesis of why there are civil laws to begin with.
We need to diminish the Catholic majority on the SCOTUS. The next appointment must NOT be Catholic under any circumstances. I am sure Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts will be reliable votes for blasphemy laws.
Woosty:
“what the hell is this??? ‘the Centro Juridico Tomas Moro’”
****************
Just another profession with institutional myopia trying to protect their own from any sort of accountability for their obvious wrongdoings. But why should we condemn them? Do we have all the facts?
what the hell is this??? ‘the Centro Juridico Tomas Moro’
@Michael Murry – haven’t you heard the most recent apologists work? The Spanish inquisition was not so bad! Hardly anybody died & Jews were pretty much left alone! Really very few people were tortured.
This BS was making the rounds for a bit until was beaten back by an application of facts from contemporaneous accounts of the torturers. But you can bet it will be back
Perhaps we could get a law passed making it illegal for religions to insult human intelligence and/or decency. If being an international pedophile ring can’t bring RICO down on the bastards maybe that law would.
Are the powers that be forgetting:
Watson v Jones, 80 U.S. 679,728 (1871).
New studies show that the skull of some Americans is growing and changing shape, and I dare say probably because propaganda is being pumped in incessantly.
Can we free-thinkers have religious believers arrested and incarcerated (protective custody) because we find their asinine adolescent animism an insult to the human power of reason? I mean if you don’t find ritual cannibalism disgusting — i.e., eating the flesh and drinking the blood of a Jew dead for the last two thousand years — then what else on earth could possibly offend you?
As Cicero in Roman times
Inquired of something odd:
“Is there a man so mad he thinks
He drinks and eats a god?”
The mack’rel-snapping Boobies blushed,
And answered with a nod
Oh, goody. Another Spanish Inquisition, brought to the world by the same Catholic cretins who slaughtered so many innocents during the last one.
Note- I am Plaid.
Wow. I guess it is a good thing the Catholic Church cannot get its hands on a lot of bloggers and extradite them to Spain….yet.
Guys, we may be in trouble.
Every time I see this kind of story I hear Specer Tracy’s voice thundering “and soon we will be marching Dems beating back back to the 16th century …” (Inherit the Wind).
We have begun this march fueled by corporate money that sees the destruction of free speach for individuals as a good way to consolidate their power joined by church leaders who have similar desires. It is truly unnerving. How do we counter this trend? Can we?
I knew European countries were a bit batty when it came to the suppression of speech that might be offensive, but I had NO idea the US was considering that. I can’t imagine how it would ever pass constitutional muster, unless it was done under treaty.
Just because I can say it now without going to jail- Jesus BBQ tastes fantastic, the Prophet Mohammed is a pig fucker, Allah is the pig, Heterosexual people are stupid, Gay people are too touchy feely, black people are lazy, white people are evil, brown people are for menial tasks, and plaid people rule.
You have the right to free speech so long as we agree…… Seems to be moving to the USA …….