Muslims In France Sue to Stop Free Speech

Muslims In France Sue to Stop
Free Speech
By Robert Spencer

France
24 reported last week that “two
Muslim groups are suing the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo after it published inflammatory cartoons of the
Prophet Mohammed. In a law suit that will revive the debate between
freedom of speech and dangerous provocation, the weekly magazine’s director
along with two cartoonists are accused of inciting racial hatred and
defamation.”

This comes after the magazine’s September 19, 2012 edition
contained numerous cartoons lampooning Muhammad – and this wasn’t the first
time Charlie Hebdo had done this. In Fall
2011, the magazine announced
plans to feature Muhammad as “editor-in-chief” of an upcoming issue. The
initial response was threats. Hackers broke into the magazine’s website and
left this message: “You keep abusing Islam’s almighty Prophet with disgusting
and disgraceful cartoons using excuses of freedom of speech.  Be Allah’s
curse upon you!”
 
Then, when the issue appeared in November 2011, the publication’s offices were
firebombed and destroyed. Yet Charlie Hebdo’s editor, Stephane “Charb”
Charbonnier, was not cowed.  “We no longer have a newspaper,” he
said.  “All our equipment has been destroyed or has melted.  We
cannot, today, put together a paper.  But we will do everything possible
to do one next week.  Whatever happens, we’ll do it.  There is no
question of giving in.”
 
Charbonnier also warned of the danger of placing Islam and Muslims above
criticism and even mockery:  “If we can poke fun at everything in France,
if we can talk about anything in France apart from Islam or the consequences of
Islamism, that is annoying.”

He
reiterated these positions when he published the next batch of Muhammad
cartoons in September 2012: “We have
the impression that it’s officially allowed for Charlie Hebdo to attack the Catholic far-right but we cannot poke
fun at fundamental Islamists. It shows the climate. Everyone is driven by fear, and that
is exactly what this small handful of extremists who do not represent anyone
want: to make everyone afraid, to shut us all in a cave.”

Charnonnier
added: “Muhammad isn’t sacred to me. I don’t blame Muslims for not laughing at
our drawings. I live under French law;
I don’t live under Koranic law.”

Charbonnier
disclaimed all responsibility for any violence that might follow his
publication of the cartoons: “I’m not
the one going into the streets with stones and Kalashnikovs. We’ve had 1,000
issues and only three problems, all after front pages about radical Islam.”

Nonetheless, this lawsuit has come, and that it is
taken seriously anywhere and not immediately dismissed as the very definition
of a frivolous lawsuit shows how much the public discourse has degenerated. It
should be clear that Charlie Hebdo
bears no responsibility for inciting any hatred; the only ones who do bear such
responsibility are those who riot and kill over perceived insults to Islam.

They, and they alone, are responsible for their
actions. This should be obvious, but it isn’t in a world gone mad. Let’s say
you call me a racist, bigoted Islamophobe. I am deeply insulted. At that moment
I have a huge range of options before me. I can calmly explain to you that
Islamic supremacism is not a race, fighting for free speech and equality of
rights for all is not bigotry, and “Islamophobia” is a manipulative concept
used by the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies to stifle resistance to Islamic
supremacism and jihad. Or I can start yelling and calling you names. Or
I can start muttering into my vodka tonic about the injustice of it all. Or I
can murder you, drag your body through the streets, set fire to your embassy,
and demand laws against insulting me. Or I can do any number of other things.

Which one will I choose? It’s up to me, not to you.
You might have a strong hunch as to how I will react, and say to your
companion, “That Spencer, he is going to come out with another windy, closely
reasoned refutation of my charges that everyone will ignore,” or “That Spencer,
he is going to burn down my embassy,” but you still can’t be absolutely sure
what I am going to do, because I am not an automaton, I am a human being
endowed with the faculty of reason, and I may always choose to react in a way
that will surprise you.

Or I may not. But in any case, it is up to me. If I
kill you, there is absolutely no justifiable basis on which anyone could say, “Well,
he had it coming. Look how he provoked him.” My choice was my own, and only I
bear responsibility for it.

But today that basic and elemental truth is lost. If
Muslims rage, riot and murder for any reason, they bear no responsibility. The
only ones who bear any responsibility for their raging, rioting and murdering
are the non-Muslims who somehow provoked them.

So anyone who may have reacted hatefully to Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons bears
responsibility for his actions. Charlie
Hebdo doesn’t.

That I have to take the time to explain this at all,
and that it will be universally ignored, is an indication of how far we have
fallen. The road is being swiftly paved for the destruction of the freedom of
speech. When, in another year or so, I am safely imprisoned for daring to speak
the truth and a new era of peace has dawned between the West and the Islamic
world, and yet the jihad keeps coming, and the full implications of the new “hate
speech” laws start to become clear in the quashing of all political dissent,
don’t say you weren’t warned.

Of course, maybe none of that will happen, and the
freedom of speech will suddenly sport a thousand articulate defenders who have
not yet been completely demonized and marginalized out of the public square.
But I don’t see them on the horizon right now.

Robert Spencer is the
director of Jihad Watch and author of
the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam
(and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Did Muhammad Exist?.

The Truth Must be Told

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Ron Gaydos

11 years ago

You know, it finally hit me. The Islamist argument sounds exactly like an abusive husband. “She shouldn’t have made me mad. I told her not to make me mad, but she did it anyway.” We don’t buy that as justification, do we?

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Guy Macher

11 years ago

I did not riot when I saw the cartoons! I did spew my coffee over my monitor though.
Islam instructs Muslims to enact evil.

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wtd

11 years ago

The outcome of this lawsuit doesn’t bode well for freedom of speech given:

French Government Wants to Prosecute Marine Le Pen for Remarks on Muslims via Islam v. Europe blog

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for sure

11 years ago

Yesss. “Ain’t Nobody” like Chaka Khan!
Friends of IDF event spurned by Stevie Wonder raises more than $14 million
December 9, 2012
(JTA) — The Friends of the Israel Defense Forces fundraiser that singer Stevie Wonder pulled out of raised more than $14 million.
More than 1,400 people attended the event in Los Angeles to aid Israeli soldiers. Entertainment mogul Haim Saban and his wife, Cheryl chaired the gala. Saban is a national board member of the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.
Actor Jason Alexander emceed the event, which featured a performance by David Foster and Friends. Surprise musical performances were presented by by “American Idol” winner Ruben Studdard and 10-time Grammy winner Chaka Khan.
[…]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwTvDSpeBAY

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Gleaner1

11 years ago

This brave young man is the French Republics strategic deterrent.
Anyone thinking their safety is assured by soldiers, tanks and ICBMs is misled.
The progressive takeover of France starts in the bedrooms and border posts of the republic, not on a battle field. Confrontation is in the back allys, the courts and the slums of the citys.
This threat from creeping Islamification really cannot be allowed to go on. EVERYONE in the West has an interest in the outcome of this struggle in France. We all know the patten, muslims believe they are the “Best of people”, they enter our countries, out breed us and step up the demands for evermore cultural and religious accomodations.
A terrible reckoning is brewing in the West and unless i’m wrong, the right will not be strong enough democratically to prevent the worst happening. Europe will be the first to feel the hot breath of conflict followed by America.
Which side will YOUR neibhbour take?

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Arnella

11 years ago

WOW! I never thought that I would admire the French (sorry France). Mr. Charbonnier and the staff of Charlie Hebdo deserve all the accolades and support they can get!

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sam

11 years ago

the magazine can prove it does not have a hatred/incitement of muslims by skewring judaism in the same way…cartoons showing jews dancing a jig while twirling a live chicken over their head in an attempt to transfer their sins to the chicken would be the place to start..oy vey

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Apostate

11 years ago

Long Live Charlie Hebdo!

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