I have been a long critic of the criminalization of speech in Europe and particularly in France. An ever-expanding range of speech is being subject to charges in France as racially or culturally or religiously insensitive. The latest such example is the $34,000 fine imposed on former far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen for calling the Nazi gas chambers a “detail” of World War Two. I can certainly understand the anger over the comment and it may indeed reflect a questioning of the holocaust. However, it is also free speech that should be protected in France and other countries.
Category: Constitutional Law
Saudi Arabia has produced almost weekly stories of grotesque and medieval sentencing out of its Sharia court system. The Sharia courts apply Islamic law that can be both brutal and primitive in flogging and beheading people for crimes against the faith. The latest is the sentencing of a man to death for renouncing Islam and allegedly posting a video ripping up a Koran and hitting it with his shoe. Saudi Arabia still enforces death sentences for apostasy for those denying their Islamic faith. It is crime that places the Kingdom well outside of the most basic guarantees of human rights and civil liberties.
Continue reading “Saudi Arabia Sentences Man To Death For Renouncing Islam and Ripping Up Koran”
There is an interesting story that has been raging on conservative sites on the Internet but suddenly popped up on national television in a CNN interview. Conservatives are criticizing CNN host Carol Costello for abruptly ending a segment on Tuesday after a guest raised Hillary Clinton’s 1975 legal defense of an accused child rapist. I recently condemned an attack ad against Judge Jane Kelly (a widely respected former public defender) for representing a criminal defendant. The attack on Clinton is equally low grade and unfair.
Continue reading “Clinton Under Attack For Serving As Counsel In Rape Case In 1975”
Knesset member Bezalel Smotrich of the Jewish Home party is calling for the segregation of Arab and Jewish mothers in maternity wards in Israeli hospitals. He insists that Israeli mothers should not have to have their babies next to Muslim babies “who might want to murder” them in 20 years. Media reported that Shaare Tsedek and Hadassah hospitals in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv’s Ichilov and the Meir hospital in Kfar Saba were all segregating patients.
Continue reading “Knesset Member Calls For Segregated Israeli Hospitals”
We recently discussed how Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has turned his suppression of critics to other countries and was demanding action from governments against his critics. At the time, I was relieved to report that Germany had held the line on free speech. My relief of premature. German ZDF public television said Monday it had deleted a poem recited by presenter Jan Böhmermann from last Thursday’s edition of “Neo Magazin Royal” after pressure from the German government. Böhmermann’s poem, containing numerous sexual innuendos, accuses Erdogan of repressing minorities, including Kurds and Christians. German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Chancellor Angela Merkel in a telephone call on Sunday evening with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had agreed that Böhmermann had recited a “deliberately abusive text.” Merkel has done precisely what civil libertarians feared: feeding Erdogan’s desire to suppress speech and affirming that he can indeed silence critics abroad. In the meantime, Merkel’s call did not take Erdogan away from his signature work in suppressing any and all critics. Erdogan’s government was busy this week with the arrest of dozens of political opponents.
Continue reading “Germany Moves To Remove Anti-Erdogan Poem And Merkel Calls Turkey To Apologize”
There is a controversial measure introduced in Tennessee by State Sen. Kerry Roberts to make the Bible the official book of the state. Roberts insists that this is just a recognition of the historical importance of the book and not any elevation of the Bible over other books of faith. That is less convincing to many who view the measure as an official endorsement of, if not an entanglement with, Christianity.
Just two weeks ago, Judge Paul Watford of the United States Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit was on the short list for the Supreme Court. Now he is back in the news with a notable decision where the court rejected the appeal of Hector Magallon-Lopez despite his showing that the police lied about the reason for the critical stop in his case. Watford, applying past Supreme Court cases, ruled that it does not matter if the police lied about the stop in the case. That led to an interesting exchange with a concurring colleague on the meaning of the controversial Whren case.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan basically called President Barack Obama a liar this week after Obama said that he spoke to Erdogan about his concerns with the crackdown on journalists in Turkey. Erdogan said it never happened and accused Obama of essentially speaking behind his back. As we discussed last week, Erdogan has moved beyond his arresting of critics in Turkey to seeking the prosecution or censorship of any critics abroad. His comments further reflect his authoritarian definition of free speech as speech that by definition excludes any criticism of him.
Cyprus is following the precarious path of countries like France and Russia in criminalizing one side of the historical debate over the genocide of Armenian Turks by Turkey. It is now a crime to deny that Ottoman Turks committed genocide against Armenian Turks a century ago, according to a resolution passed Cypriot parliament. While a French court later struck down its law, the addition of Cyprus among countries criminalizing historical debates is chilling and disconcerting.
Continue reading “Cyprus Criminalizes The Questioning Of The Armenian Genocide”
There is an interesting controversy surrounding the hit musical “Hamilton” on Broadway. I have not yet seen the play on a trip to New York but I have been told by friends that it is terrific. Frankly, as a constitutional law professor, any play based on the Framers is a must-see. However, the play now has a more contemporary legal character after a complaint about its casting call. The casting notice put out by the play tells white actors that they need not apply.
The United States continues to give overwhelming support to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he continues his expansion of authoritarian power, the dismantling of secular government in favor of Islamic rule, and the destruction of free speech and the free press in the country. Now Erdogan’s insatiable appetite for censorship and sanctions of critics has extended to outside of Turkey where he is demanding that critics be silenced. Not only has his thuggish security details been criticized for roughing up protesters in Europe and the United States, but Turkey is demanding action from governments against his critics.
There is an interesting controversy out of Marquette University, which has moved to suspend and possibly fire Professor John McAdams after his criticism of a junior faculty member Cheryl Abbate in a free speech dispute. Abbate was recorded by a student in saying that his views against same-sex marriage were not appropriate to be voiced in her class. The response of the university has some problematic elements for a free speech perspective.
We have been following how universities across the country have seen an increase in claims of “micro aggressions” and impermissible “cultural appropriation” (here and here). Now that tension has become physical at San Francisco State University after student Bonita Tindle reportedly attacked a white student named Cory Goldstein for wearing dreadlocks. The claim seems to capture the race to bottom on campuses where an ever widening array of words or symbols are declared racially or culturally insensitive. However, this was so bizarre, I checked to confirm that it was not an early April Fool’s joke. Yet, various news organizations are reporting it and a YouTube video shows the attack.
The Saudi Arabian government is again reaffirming the extremist Islamic system under Sharia law this month in pushing not just for more severe punishment for homosexuals but more prosecutions of people who are viewed as espousing or encouraging homosexual views on social media. One such major victory for the Saudi religious police came this week with the arrest of a Saudi doctor for raising a rainbow flag outside his home in Jeddah. After his arrest, the doctor insisted that he had no idea that the rainbow was a symbol for gay rights. Yet those champions of Islamic purity in the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice still charged him.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is back in the news again this week to dispel any doubt that he is hellbent on assuming authoritarian powers. The latest subject of his wrath none other than Britain’s consul general Leigh Turner over a “selfie” taken at the espionage trial of two journalists. We previously discussed the outrageous prosecution of Can Dündar, editor of the Cumhuriyet newspaper, and his colleague Erdem Gül – a direct attack free speech, free press, and political dissent. Turner with other diplomats showed up to support civil liberties in Turkey at the start of the trial. That led to another tyrannical outburst from Erdoğan who has added diplomats to the list of undesirables in his new Islamic dominated government.
