We recently discussed the bizarre report that the Saudi Arabian government was going to sue a Twitter user for a tweet where he compared the death sentence given poet Ashraf Fayadh to ISIS executions. It appears that decapitations of non-believers ordered under Sharia are materially different from decapitations of nonbelievers ordered by ISIS under Sharia law. Now, as if struggling to bring home the absurd distinction, another Saudi Sharia court has sentenced a Saudi Arabian woman to death by stoning for adultery. The man? He gets 100 lashes.
Category: Media
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.”
We have previously discussed people who simply do not know how to take a mugshot . . . and some who appear long prepared for their close up. Sarah Elizabeth Furay, 19, is one of the photo-ready alleged felons. Dubbed the “happiest mugshot” by the Houston Chronicle, Furay seems like she has been selected for a free exotic cruise rather than a slew of drug charges in College Station, Texas. Indeed, this smiling individual has been described by media as an alleged “drug kingpin.” I hardly see the basis for that distinction but the police certainly hit a treasure trove of drugs and evidence.
Continue reading “Furay Into Criminal Stardom: Texas Teenager’s Mugshot Goes Viral”
We have been discussing the rapid erosion of free speech on our campuses. That trend started a long time ago in our high schools where officials have steadily attacked the exercise of free speech by teenagers. Few however have reached the level of censorship and content-based punishment as Revere High School in Massachusetts. Cheerleader Caley Godino has been banned from her team because she tweeted political comments that her teachers did not like about illegal immigration.
As we have discussed, there seems to be a rising level of intolerance in academia and campuses for opposing views. A recent international conference showed this intolerance in the response to former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court Justice Rajinder Sachar in his speech on “Radical Islamism.” In an effort to address stereotypes and intolerance shown Muslims, Sachar noted that 95 per cent of beef traders in India are Hindi. The reaction was an immediate walk out with some academics demanding that Justice Sachar not be allowed to continue and turning off the lights and fans.
The growing intolerance shown on campuses continues this week with a new controversy at Warwick University in Coventry, England where second-year George Lawlor, 19, has been publicly harassed and denounced for questioning rape awareness sessions. While universities have embraced the ill-defined concept of “microaggressions” and pursued speech deemed insulting or harassing against different groups, there appears to be little protection for those who espouse opposing views. The Warwick case raises an interesting example of legitimate and less legitimate responses to controversial views. I happen to disagree with Lawlor on critical points, but I am disturbed by reports of his being effectively prevented from going to class.
We have long discussed our close alliance with Saudi Arabia despite that country’s denial of the most fundamental human rights for women, non-Muslims, journalists, and political dissidents. While the State Department continues to vaguely reference “reforms” in the Kingdom, the Saudi Sharia courts and religious police continue to generate shocking medieval cases where people are flogged or executed for exercising free thought or associations. The latest outrage is the death sentence given Ashraf Fayadh, a Palestinian poet and leading member of Saudi Arabia’s contemporary art scene. He has been sentenced to death for renouncing Islam, being an atheist (which he denies) and insulting Saudi Arabia. Many view his real offense as being his embarrassment of the infamous religious police (mutaween) in Abha after he posted a video of their lashing a man in public. As is often the case in the pseudo, “courts” of Saudi Arabia, he was denied counsel and any real opportunity to present a defense.
Princeton University has agreed to explore the removal of the name and images of former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson from buildings and school programs under a deal signed with protesters who objected to Wilson’s support of segregation, which was legal at the time. This action occurs as Harvard Law students have demanded the dropping of the school seal due to a connection to a slaveholder.
Harvard Law students have started a campaign to drop the historic seal of Harvard because it is tied to an 18th-century slaveholder. The students organization, Royall Must Fall, have held campus demonstrations demanding the removal of the seal. The three sheaves of wheat on the seal come from the Royall family crest (which raises the compromise possibility of just replacing that portion of the seal attributed to the Royall family). Third-year law student Alexander Clayborne insists that the effort is part of “[o]ur larger goals include decolonization of the law school in general and decolonization of the law school curriculum.”
A student at Georgia Southern University has triggered a controversy that has led to her being fired from her job and charges that she has engaged in hate speech after criticizing protesters at the University of Missouri. Emily Faz, a senior, was critical of social media postings where Missouri protesters objected that the terrorist attacks in Paris were taken too much media attention away from their story.
Usually moments of silence are solemn and dignified events that can help heal wounds left in the aftermath of tragedies. Two such occasions this week however show how they can leave troubled feelings in their wake. The first blown event was G-20 Moment of Silence for the victims in Paris. The problem is that it turned out to be a G-19 Moment of Silence because President Obama walked in late. While one would hope that this deeply symbolic moment would be sufficiently important to get the President there on time, problems can occur. Yet, this President has been criticized for years for being consistently late to events, which shows a lack of respect as well as organization. This is one of the worst such failures in a long line of delayed arrivals. The second incident was far more disturbing in Turkey.
Dov Lior, the chief rabbi of the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba, appears to have rushed to show that extremists can be found on every side of a massacre. After the Paris attacks, Lior rushed forward to tell the world that the attacks were actually directed by God as payment for what Europeans “did to our people 70 years ago.” It does not seem to matter to Lior that France was one of the first to fight against Germany and was left in ruins by the Nazis. It does not even matter that this view of God would make the almighty as morally bankrupt and vicious as ISIS. In Lior’s twisted mind, murderous Islamic extremists were used by God to kill innocent people for the treatment of Jews in the 1940s. Makes perfect sense. It is truly impressive that extremists like Lior cannot resist seeing divine purpose in every act, even using ISIS as a vehicle for divine justice for Jews.
Dan Kimmel, 63, may have come up with the worst possible campaign statement for someone running as a candidate for the Minnesota House of Representatives. The Democratic candidate tweeted that the Islamic State group “isn’t necessarily evil” and its members were doing what they thought was best for their community. Not only is the tweet bizarre but it occurred shortly before the massacre that left more than 120 people dead and more than 350 wounded in Paris by ISIS. Kimmel has since resigned from the race.
We have been following the rapid decline of free speech rights in Europe and Canada. Germany has long been the subject of criticism from the free speech movement. The country has long criminalized speech dealing with World War II and the Nazis. While the real benefit of those laws has been questioned given the long existence of a neo-Nazi groups in the country, prosecutors continue to bring troubling charges against those who voice unpopular or obnoxious beliefs in prohibited areas. The latest is Ursula Haverbeck, an 87-year-old German Neo-Nazi grandmother who has been sentenced to 10 months in prison after being found guilty of denying the Holocaust. She does not believe that the Holocaust was real but, rather than leaving the matter to open debate, the Germans are imprisoning her for either not changing her mind or not staying silent about her views.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Last week I featured an article describing how the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries engaged in promoting and displaying the artwork of imprisoned capital murderer Leonard Peltier at its headquarters. The article and enquiries I made to various law enforcement officials and the former FBI Agent’s Association generated a considerable backlash against the agency for its actions.
On Friday I met with KING-5 News reporter Drew Mikkelson and Former FBI Agent Ray Lauer representing the Seattle Chapter of the Retired FBI Agent’s Association at the behest of its national headquarters, for interviews on this controversy. The story was featured on the medium’s 6:30 broadcast.
Leonard Peltier was convicted of two counts of murder in the deaths of FBI Agents Jack Coler and Ron Williams, both twenty-eight years old at the time. On the fortieth anniversary year of the deaths, Labor and Industries hosted the artwork of Leonard Peltier which sparked outrage among former FBI agents, the law enforcement community, and family members of the deceased agents.
In an interview, L&I’s spokesman Tim Church explained that his agency did not intend to further Peltier’s cause by displaying his art, yet his agency did just that by its promotion. The Washington agency further claimed that his paintings were part of the Native American contribution to the art during a Native American Heritage Month celebration. The agency was displaying a selection of other works, however displayed Mr. Peltier’s art more prominently in the main rotunda of the headquarters next to the main entrance. Moreover the government provided flyers and cards attached to the paintings directing the viewer on how to contact the gallery. Though I saw and photographed these promotional materials during my first visit to the headquarters, the department removed these prior to our arrival for the interviews.