Blashphemy In Germany

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

A_Wanderer

ONE love, blood, life
Joined
Jan 19, 2004
Messages
12,518
Location
The Wild West
I hate to think what would happen if he burnt a Koran
DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) - A German court on Thursday convicted a businessman of insulting Islam by printing the word “Koran” on toilet paper and offering it to mosques.

The 61-year-old man, identified only as Manfred van H., was given a one-year jail sentence, suspended for five years, and ordered to complete 300 hours of community service, a district court in the western German town of Luedinghausen ruled. ...

Manfred van H. printed out sheets of toilet paper bearing the word “Koran” shortly after a group of Muslims carried out a series of bomb attacks in London in July 2005. He sent the paper to German television stations, magazines and some 15 mosques.

Prosecutors said that in an accompanying letter Manfred van H. called Islam’s holy book a “cookbook for terrorists.” He also offered his toilet paper for sale on the Internet at a price of 4 euros ($4.76) per roll, saying the proceeds would go toward a “memorial to all the victims of Islamic terrorism.”

The maximum sentence for insulting religious beliefs under the German criminal code is three years in prison.
link

Blasphemy laws are grotesque.
 
The worst part of it is that some will now seek to make him into some kind of patriotic, free-speech martyr-hero for his grotesquely vulgar and bigoted behavior. Do blasphemy laws encourage or discourage this phenomenon? As a practical matter, can Germany afford the social and political costs of allowing such behavior to go without any sort of formal reprimand--any sort of public assertion that We do not condone such sentiments? What other ways short of laws might they do that? Is it in the best interests of stability to dismiss all responsibility for addressing the damage to community relations done by such individuals?
 
I am far more critical of any religion if it attacks critics. Community relations and society should take a back seat to individual rights, the right to free expression, rather than enforce non-rights such as the dubious "right" to not be offended.
 
verte76 said:
He shouldn't have written "Koran" on toilet paper and sent it around. That's beyond the pale, in my book.

You would toss someone in jail for that?

What about this:

toilet_clinton.jpg


or this:

TP_arm.jpg
 
I've seen that toilet paper. It's actually sold in stores. I'm not saying the guy should go to jail, but what he did was in appallingly bad taste and shouldn't be treated as "freedom" when it's more in the "license to insult" category.
 
That is just a subjective judgment of the nature of the speech. The point of the thread is the criminalization of a subjective judgment.
 
nbcrusader said:
What about this...
Are the consequences of offending political party members in the US really analogous to those of offending a poorly integrated minority group in a climate of deep mutual cultural distrust as pertains in Germany, though? I'm not speaking of the appropriate legal response necessarily, rather returning to the considerations in my first post above. "Attacking" critics (as A_W cited) is one thing--the political costs of more "benign" results like alienation and lack of faith in the goodwill of the majority are something else.
 
yolland said:

Are the consequences of offending political party members in the US really analogous to those of offending a poorly integrated minority group in a climate of deep mutual cultural distrust as pertains in Germany, though? I'm not speaking of the appropriate legal response necessarily, rather returning to the considerations in my first post above. "Attacking" critics (as A_W cited) is one thing--the political costs of more "benign" results like alienation and lack of faith in the goodwill of the majority are something else.

Can you build a coherent method of censorship based on these factors? How deep is the mutual cultural distrust? How much alienation? How little faith in the goodwill of the majority? How long do these laws stay in place? When will a group reach a level of confidence that they can handle being the target of such speech?

I'd fear a criminal justice system based on such amorphous standards.
 
But I'm not talking about the criminal justice system. Are there no alternatives in between outright censorship on the hand, and an indifferent, hostility-towards-prejudice-is-their-problem,-not-ours stance on the other? I'm not sure Germany can afford to adopt the latter.
 
yolland said:
But I'm not talking about the criminal justice system. Are there no alternatives in between outright censorship on the hand, and an indifferent, hostility-towards-prejudice-is-their-problem,-not-ours stance on the other? I'm not sure Germany can afford to adopt the latter.

Germany as a collective people can tackle the issue in many different ways. The method used here, unfortunately, is a government run criminal justice system.

I'm not sure it is a core function of government to make us like each other.
 
is there a distinction to be made between presumably white middle/upper class males insulting other white middle/upper class males in the case of the toilet paper pictured above and white middle/upper class males insulting alienated minorities, non-specific to race and/or religion?
 
verte76 said:
I've seen that toilet paper. It's actually sold in stores. I'm not saying the guy should go to jail, but what he did was in appallingly bad taste and shouldn't be treated as "freedom" when it's more in the "license to insult" category.
And they should ban flag burning because it insults veterans.

Free speech is an all or nothing situation and until religious groups get that idea and stop trying to stop offence or hitting out violently against opponents they deserve savage mockery.

If it said "Brown This ******" then maybe racial hate speech argument could apply, but even then the only reason it may possibly be allowed to stick is because race is not strictly an idea, it is not something that you can change through conversion.
 
nbcrusader said:
Are one person's feelings worth more than anothers?

would you deny that social stratification plays any role in these stories?

look, i'm not going to defend islam or any other revealed religion, but it seems obvious that empowered white males love to preserve their ability to insult fringe minorities under the badge of free speech and expression.
 
Last edited:
1.2 Billion Muslims on the planet compared to how many atheists? They are hardly a fringe minority, I would say that offending the fringe minority which is Muslims who fly off the handle at these insults is a noble enough pursuit - just like it is to scrutinise so-called saints who were in life utter bastards and pretty much any exclusive belief system.
 
A_Wanderer said:
race is not strictly an idea, it is not something that you can change through conversion.
Not being ethnically German isn't an "idea" either, as their citizenship laws underline. The gulf separating these communities runs much deeper than anyone's theology. If Germany's Muslim population had been limited to ethnic German converts, it's most unlikely Mr. van H. would have thought to associate them and their religious beliefs with the London bombings in the first place.
 
A_Wanderer said:
1.2 Billion Muslims on the planet compared to how many atheists? They are hardly a fringe minority, I would say that offending the fringe minority which is Muslims who fly off the handle at these insults is a noble enough pursuit - just like it is to scrutinise so-called saints who were in life utter bastards and pretty much any exclusive belief system.

my previous post was a lesson in generalities. muslims are obviously not a fringe "minority" on the global scale. there was also a tragic typo that i have now corrected.

that said, politically speaking most arab muslims are a definitely a fringe minority, if metaphors are allowed. chastised and invaded by foreignors, abused and manipulated by religious leaders. when people who have no real voice of their own are constantly berated by westerners, what do you expect to happen? instead of pointing and laughing it may be a more worthwhile venture to explore the causes of such behavoir on a deeper level.
 
Understandable but regardless of race or ethnicity peoples belief systems (their philosophies, prophets, commandments and icons) are all ideas and deserve absolutely no legal protections.

It is a free speech issue regardless of how offensive it is.
 
Se7en said:

instead of pointing and laughing it may be a more worthwhile venture to explore the causes of such behavoir on a deeper level.
Nobody is preventing discourse and the free exchange of ideas, engagement with people generally works better if one is polite. But this can only exist when you have free speech. If offensive acts and statements are off limits then how long before articles of faith become complete taboo? Whatever is done then it is "our" fault, if these communities are isolated by free speech then "we" are to blame, if these communities are shielded from criticism and become isolated in their magical faery land then "we" are to blame. Integration is a good thing and it is not helped by legal barriers and protections.

I should be under no obligation to observe religious rules, accepting that society will be offensive to your beliefs but having enough faith and respect for the social contract to weather it is how most believers have to operate, behaving like an angry teen whenever you are offended then tough shit.

This argument applies equally against all religions and religious institutions, exceptions for nobody - not Jews, not Christians and not even crazy as all fuck Scientologists.
 
Last edited:
I'm willing to bet some guy writing a nasty and offensive comment isn't the biggest problem facing Muslims in Germany. :happy:

Maybe instead of making a show of this they could focus on the greater causes of alienation like discrimination in housing and employment...speaking of which, "ethnic" Germans aren't gonna be happy with anyone that doesn't seem ethnically German with the unemployment they've got at the moment.
 
A_Wanderer said:
Nobody is preventing discourse and the free exchange of ideas, engagement with people generally works better if one is polite. But this can only exist when you have free speech. If offensive acts and statements are off limits then how long before articles of faith become complete taboo? Whatever is done then it is "our" fault, if these communities are isolated by free speech then "we" are to blame, if these communities are shielded from criticism and become isolated in their magical faery land then "we" are to blame. Integration is a good thing and it is not helped by legal barriers and protections.

I should be under no obligation to observe religious rules, accepting that society will be offensive to your beliefs but having enough faith and respect for the social contract to weather it is how most believers have to operate, behaving like an angry teen whenever you are offended then tough shit.

This argument applies equally against all religions and religious institutions, exceptions for nobody - not Jews, not Christians and not even crazy as all fuck Scientologists.

i would agree with you if there were no double standards, like laws protecting judaism or christianity, while not caring about islam.

i think the blasphemy laws are stupid anyway, i should have a right to blasphemy! people might not like my attitude, but i should not be limited by laws. thats what social pressure is for, i guess :shrug:
 
if blasphemy was a crime in the USA, i'd have racked up a life sentence by now! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

i say "goddamn" and "goddammit" a lot, as well as saying "jesus christ!" as an exclamation and "for chrissake!"

it's fun! :lmao:
 
Kofi Annan
The offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad were first published in a European country which has recently acquired a significant Muslim population, and is not yet sure how to adjust to it.
link

Well Islam does claim universal jurisdiction and my fibre of being at birth but having completely abandoned any chance of that ever happening

Call me bigoted and old fashioned but common law, free speech and freedom of religion should be non-negotiable aspects of these societies and musn't be bent to the will of "recently aquired" populations.
 
Back
Top Bottom