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We Need to Talk About Islam
by Nina Shea and Paul Marshall https://www.legal-project.org/881/we-need-to-talk-about-islam Excerpt: The Wilders trial shows the threat religious hate-speech laws pose to free speech. Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders was threatened with criminal punishment for hate speech from the moment his anti-Koran film Fitna hit the internet in March 2008. Last month, a Dutch judicial oversight body ordered that he be tried anew after finding that judges in the first round of court proceedings appeared to be biased. Even if Mr. Wilders is ultimately acquitted, as his prosecutors themselves urge, he will have already been punished by years of costly and tiring legal wrangling. Speech now deemed suspect includes subjects that are commonly and openly aired when not involving Islam: women's subordination, violence, child marriages, criminalization of homosexuality and animal cruelty. While not all such cases resulted in convictions, all contribute to a broad and chilling effect on speech. Because there is little predictability in the prosecution and adjudication of such cases, hinging as they do on subjective feelings, nobody knows what can be said with impunity. The flawed premise that religious views can easily be compartmentalized into personal or social realms itself violates the teaching of most religions. But the greatest threat posed by this case is not to a lone Dutch firebrand, but to Europeans at large, whose fundamental freedoms of speech and religion are being steadily undermined. Those trying to repress these individual rights in the name of sensitivity are gaining ground with each case that upholds the state's power to regulate the content of speech on Islam. Since Mr. Wilders' defense does not challenge the legitimacy of hate-speech laws per se, but instead points to the specific facts of his case, even his acquittal would not alter this encroachment on core Western rights. Read the complete original version of this item... receive the latest by email: subscribe to the legal project's free mailing list Note: The content of external articles does not necessarily reflect the views of The Legal Project. |
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