I recently raised concerns on PBS Newshour about a lawsuit by Israelis who are suing in the United States to force Facebook to take down violent, anti-Jewish sites. While I believe Facebook can and should take down the sites, the use of the government to close such sites raise serious free speech questions in where to draw the line on such censorship or regulation of speech. I noted that such lawsuits like the recent successful action against Twitter by Jewish students are part of a comprehensive attack on free speech that uses such civil actions as a form of speech regulation or retaliation. Saudi Arabia has again stepped forward to make this point more powerfully that I could ever hope to. The Saudi justice ministry has announced that it will sue a Twitter user who compared the death sentence handed down on Friday to a Palestinian poet to the punishments meted out by Islamic State. I have drawn the same obvious comparison in the case of Ashraf Fayadh as have readers on this site and other sites. Rather than stop acting like ISIS (which would require a greater recognition of due process and human rights in the Kingdom), Saudi Arabia is seeking to threaten people to stop them from making the analogy. However, the beheadings of nonbelievers will continue. For many, the Saudi Foreign Ministry sounds like it is putting out the word “if you say we are like ISIS again, we will behead you.”
Of course, most defamation actions allow truth as a defense but truth is highly relative in the Kingdom.
Seemingly clueless to the fact that pursuing critics is . . . well . . . ISIS-like, an official announced “the justice ministry will sue the person who described … the sentencing of a man to death for apostasy as being `ISIS-like’.”
Fayadh was sentenced to death for apostasy – a favorite crime of ISIS and a legal abomination of any nation that seeks to call itself part of the civilized world. Saudi Arabia bans other religions from having places of worship in their territory and routinely sentences people to flogging and death for morality crimes under its medieval Sharia legal system. What Saudi Arabia called “courts” and “judges” are really absurd Sharia tribunals headed by clerics following the harsh Wahhabi traditions of the country.
In this twisted legal system, it all makes perfect sense to seek to punish those who criticize the lack of justice by denying them any notion of justice: “Questioning the fairness of the courts is to question the justice of the Kingdom and its judicial system based on Islamic law, which guarantees rights and ensures human dignity.”
The case is interesting because for years I have been critical of the effort during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State to support efforts making blasphemy a crime. For many years, I have been writing about the threat of an international blasphemy standard and the continuing rollback on free speech in the West. For recent columns, click here and here and here.
Much of this writing has focused on the effort of the Obama Administration to reach an accommodation with allies like Saudi Arabia to develop a standard for criminalizing anti-religious speech. We have been following the rise of anti-blasphemy laws around the world, including the increase in prosecutions in the West and the support of the Obama Administration for the prosecution of some anti-religious speech under the controversial Brandenburg standard. Now that effort has come to a head with the new President of Egypt President Mohamed Mursi calling for enactment of an anti-blasphemy law at the United Nations. Mursi is also demanding legal action against the filmmaker by the United States despite the fact that the film is clearly protected by the first amendment.
This case shows how the Saudis treat exercises of a wide variety of free speech as threatening social order. The obvious intent is to chill others by hoisting some poor wretch who will be forced to confess his sins before some kangaroo court. The distinction with beheading non-believers in Saudi Arabia as opposed to beheading non-believers by ISIS can be hard for sane people to discern. Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki defended the use of capital punishments on NBC such as beheadings in the kingdom by saying the country’s Shariah-based legal system guarantees fairness since it is based on Islamic Sharia law” “ISIS has no legitimate way to decide to decide to kill people.”
Clearly the Saudis remain enemies of ISIS despite their shared Sunni traditions. It is not the fight against extremism that I question (though we can debate the means), it is the selective measure that we apply between different countries. It is certainly true that Saudi Arabia is not viewed as a sponsor of terrorism, has attempted some marginal reforms, and has committed itself to fighting ISIS. I see the difference with ISIS even with Saudi Arabia beheading people in public squares and sentencing people to death for apostasy. However, it remains a country that refuses a single non-Mosque to be built on its territory, widespread denial of free speech, denial of basis rights for women, denial of the free press, and a host of other rights considered core human rights. The comparison however to ISIS is inescapable when you are killing people for apostasy after giving them laughable trials before clerics applying Sharia law.
I cannot tolerate religions of any stripe. All this Hey Zeus apCray is just too much. Of course the Eighth Day Dog Adventists are not a religion. We just speak the truth about history and guidance.
So on the 8th Day God Created Dog. We dogs are here on Earth to give you humans guidance.
Here is some guidance. Do not go near a church, mosque or temple of any sort. Do not kneel and pray to God. Call your dog and ask for advice.
Thank you slohrss & John.
John, Among our political institutions I would agree. Ultimately though, the people are to be the final check on government and for all practical purposes we have completely abandoned that responsibility. And for that, We the People have proven to be the “singular American failure”.
Saudi Arabia obeys the Quran. ISIS obeys the Quran. People called Muslims obey the Quran. None of them by name obey Jesus who says work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. That means this: Don’t be a terrorist. Whoever does not have Jesus as their master will be a terrorist.
slohrss29 + Olly,
Hear, hear!
Isn’t that, however, the essential function of the Supreme Court;
to be a great big NO?
Let’s start with, “Sorry, Crazy Abe, you’ll have to abolish that using economic and private market tools.”
And, oh HELL no to Karl:
NO CENTRAL PLANNING
NO CONTROL OF THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION
NO SOCIAL ENGINEERING
NO REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH
(i.e. no violation of private property rights, no welfare, affirmative action, “Fair Housing,” “Anti-discrimination,” no forced busing, no social services, no Obamacare, etc.).
The Supreme Court has been the singular American failure.
Actionable. Article 2, Section 4.
Well said on both of your posts today, Olly.
Saudi Arabia is ISIS “Light.”
Islam, Muslims and their Quran are subversives-cum-traitors in America.
The Quran requires believers to convert or kill infidels.
The Quran requires believers to nullify the U.S. Constitution by denying other citizens their right to freedom
of religion.
The Quran, Muslims and Mosques must be prosecuted, deported and destructed.
There would be no assault on free speech if the constitution actually prevented such things. No, what we truly need is an electorate that understands words are no protection in the hands of a political class that refuses to respect them.
Read up on the TPP, TTIP and TiSA.
The assault on Free Speech is growing larger. The only saving grace for Americans is the Constitution which prevents our rights being infringed by treaties.
https://wikileaks.org/tisa-financial/
https://search.wikileaks.org/search?q=ttip
“There is no position which depends on clearer principles than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.” (Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, #78
“If the treaty power is unlimited, then we don’t have a Constitution. Surely the President and the Senate cannot do by treaty what the whole government is interdicted from doing in any way.” Thomas Jefferson- quoted from his Manual of Parliamentary Practice
: “a treaty cannot be made which alters the Constitution of the country or which infringes any express exceptions to the power of the Constitution of the United States.” Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers
“If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” Samuel Adams
Let us hope he doesn’t end like St Sebastian. The poor man.
There is a lot of abuses of human rights in the Middle East. I hope the current trend towards more extremism reverses itself. Maybe we need to stream Mr Rogers 24/7 on all TVs and computers to deprogram the intolerance and violence.
The image of this man reminds me at many levels paintings depicting The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian.
What dlet60 wrote.
Je suis apostasy.
“Clearly the Saudis remain enemies of ISIS despite their shared Sunni traditions……………….. It is certainly true that Saudi Arabia is not viewed as a sponsor of terrorism, has attempted some marginal reforms, and has committed itself to fighting ISIS.”
It is not clear at all that Saudi Arabia is an enemy of ISIS. And I beg to differ that SA is not a sponsor of terrorism, Yemen as one example, Syria as another. ISIS does not exist in a vacuum, just where does it get its support if not from those states seeking to overthrow the Assad government; Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey and the United States?
Am I reading this correctly, Saudi Arabia does not like the comparison because they have a “legal” process they follow before carrying out the exact same sentence that ISIS provides? Lipstick on a pig comes to mind.
Islam will need its own reformation and age of enlightenment. What is most disconcerting is it took about 300-400 years for this process to work itself out in western cultures.
Will the Secretary of State rush to SA to apologize for that Twitter user and for Twitter and free speech? Will he kneel and ask forgiveness? If a court even allows such a suit to go forward, it will be a travesty!
Is this the same Justice minister who according to a report from the UK government was given $6 billion to reform the justice System in SA and then said there was nothing to reform because it is Sharia law given directly to them by God?
Our allies…..what a farce.
More proof for importing hundreds of thousands of Arabs from the region to the US.
Appeasement is the backbone of the Christian way of thinking and many liberals are Christian secularists.
It was the path to enlightenment through the reformation and eventually to freedom with the aid of scientific advance.
How tolerant must we be of intolerance? When intolerance threatens our way of life or system of govenment we must be ruthless to save enormous suffering.
Suppose it involves invading an other country to depose its.intolerant leaders– what then?
I do not believe we should go so far but make it clear what toleration means. Revolution must come from within just as it did in the western democracies.
If you don’t want a blasphemy law, make sure Hillary does not get elected.
“Clearly the Saudis remain enemies of ISIS despite their shared Sunni traditions.”
Really? The Saudis must have had a lot to with the emergence of ISIS. So did the CIA for that matter: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/09/21/down-memory-hole-nyt-erases-cias-efforts-overthrow-syrias-government
Appeasement seems to be rampant in liberal ideology, from the micro family level to the national and international level. Look for a quick and hard backlash.
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