As many on this blog know, I am a great fan of Pope Francis who has brought an inspiring leadership to the Church that has drawn millions back to the faith. Given that admiration, I was disheartened to read the Pope’s comment on free speech today. I ran a column last weekend on how world leaders are failing over themselves to “Stand With Charlie” after the massacre of editors and staff at Charlie Hebdo magazine. However, the West has been rolling back on free speech rights, including some of these very leaders. Pope Francis added his view this week to those insisting that free speech must have limits when it comes to insulting people about their religion. It is a disappointing observation, particularly when coupled with a rather poor analogy.
There is an interesting case out of Washington that pits the “free range children” movement against child welfare authorities. Danielle and Alexander Meitiv believe in the new movement to reject “helicopter” parenting and allow child to push limit in venturing out on their own and testing self-reliance. For many parents, the specific controversy would seem much too do about nothing” a one-mile walk home for the two Meitiv kids aged 10 and 6. However, the kids were stopped halfway by police who reported the parents to child welfare, which continues to investigate them for endangering their children.
The town officials in Braunau, Austria have a bit of a problem. They have a pretty Renaissance home with “location, location, location” but also history, history, history. The picturesque corner home happens to be the birthplace of Adolph Hitler and the town is exploring ways to preventing it from continuing to draw neo-Nazis as a type of fascist heritage tour.
Remember Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s outrage over the appearance of Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu at the Paris march for free speech? It seems a rather bizarre scene for a man who had led to one of the greatest rollbacks on free speech and press freedom in Turkey’s history as part of his insertion of Islamic fundamentalism into the once secular state. The irony only grew today after a Turkish court banned websites from show this cover of Charlie Hebdo’s magazine following the massacre of its editors and staff by Muslim extremists.
Continue reading “Turkish Court Bans Charlie Hebdo Cover With Mohammad Cartoon After Erdogan Returns From Free Speech March”
This weekend I wrote a column for the Washington Post on the crackdown of free speech in France. The column suggested that, if the French really wanted to honor the dead at Charlie Hebdo, they would rescind the laws used to hound them and threaten them with criminal prosecution for years. (Indeed, at least one surviving journalist expressed contempt for those who now support free speech but remained silent in the face of past efforts to shut down the magazine). Now, however, news reports indicate that the French government is doubling down on criminalizing speech in the name of free speech after the massacre. France has reportedly made dozens of arrests of people who glorify terrorism and engage in hateful or antiSemitic speech.
Continue reading “France Follows Freedom of Speech Rally With Crackdown On Free Speech”
Ok, I admit that I can be a broken record about snow phobia in Virginia and the inability of drivers to cope with a single flake of the white stuff without creating piles of burning wrecks. However, my four children will be staying home today because of the snow. I had to actually go outside to see it but it is there — a dusting of the stuff but enough to shutdown one of the largest school districts in the country.
The cover picture on the Israeli newspaper HaMevaser may seem familiar to those who watched the historic march for free speech in Paris this weekend, but something is missing. If you said, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, you have a keen eye and the qualifications to be an ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspaper editor. The newspaper removed not just Merkel’s picture but the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo and Simonetta Sommaruga, the president of Switzerland as well as a European Union official. The reason? God does not want men to see pictures of women, even world leaders, for reasons of modesty and religious purity.
Continue reading “Can You Spot Something Missing In This Picture?”
The first issue by Charlie Hebdo will hit the streets today with a cover featuring a cartoon of Mohammed in defiance of Muslim extremists. The magazine will be offered “in 16 languages” for readers around the world and many are lining up to buy it to show solidarity with the magazine and free speech values after the massacre of 12 innocent people at the magazine.
The University of Virginia has reinstated the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity after a Rolling Stone magazine article on gang rape allegations was discredited. Teresa A. Sullivan, the president of the university said that “We welcome Phi Kappa Psi, and we look forward to working with all fraternities and sororities in enhancing and promoting a safe environment for all.” The question is whether the University treated these students fairly in ordering the suspension and whether the University will take any steps with regard to the original accuser if it concludes that there was no gang rape at the fraternity as she alleged.
Continue reading “Virginia Reinstates Fraternity After Gang Rape Allegations Are Discredited”
Dartmouth college has suspended 64 students in what appears an unprecedented action over cheating. What makes the action even more unnerving is that the cheating occurred in an ethics class. Most students have been suspended for a term. Professor Randall Balmer said that he was tipped off when he received more answers to this questions than students in the class.
Continue reading “Sixty-Four Dartmouth Students Suspended For Cheating . . . In Ethics Class”
Much of the talk after the massive march for free speech in Paris this weekend was the absence of President Barack Obama with other world leaders. It was an embarrassment for our country and slap in the face to the French. Instead, the Administration sent Jane Hartley, one of its bundlers turned diplomats who were given a major appointment for raising money for the President. Even though Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris that very day, he did not even stick around to march with other leaders. The Administration is now admitting that it blew it but there is a mystifying lack of basic competence and foresight at the White House at such moments. Rather than attend the rally, Obama stated in town for a photo op with the San Antonio Spurs. It was a shameful image to leave with French. This was not the only such controversy over who was present and who was not.
Various news sites are reporting a new pronouncement from a Muslim cleric that might be chilling for Muslims who have joined in a common winter practice in neighborhoods around the world. Sheikh Mohammed Saleh al-Munajjid told a follower on a website that snowmen are anti-Islamic and building them is a sin. It appears that sin has come to Saudi Arabia in the form of snow this year falling over upland areas of Tabuk province near Saudi Arabia’s border with Jordan.
Continue reading “Frosty Fatwah: Saudi Arabian Cleric Declares Snowmen To Be Anti-Islamic”
A proposed British law creates a serious threat to academic freedom and free speech. The law seeks to force universities to take action to stop young people being exposed to extremist ideas and speakers. The law is consistent with a trend toward greater speech regulation in the West As I discussed in column yesterday in the Washington Post.
Continue reading “Cameron Government Moves To Impose Speech Code On English Universities”
Russia has imposed a bizarre new law that bars transsexual and transgender people from obtaining driving licenses. The Russian now also ban people found to have proclivities toward fetishism, exhibitionism, pathological gambling, compulsive stealing, and voyeurism as “mental disorders” incompatible with driving.
Our erstwhile ally Egypt has again violated the most basic civil liberties in a criminal case involving blasphemy. An Egyptian court has sentenced student Karim al-Banna, 21, to three years in jail for announcing on Facebook that he is an atheist and for insulting Islam. His own father testified against him and denounced his son for “was embracing extremist ideas against Islam.” Of course, neither Egypt nor the father view criminalizing someone’s mere speech about religion to be an “extremist idea.”