financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
http://www.breakingnews.ie/2006/01/28/story242106.html
{sarcasm} Islam = Religion of Peace {sarcasm}
{sarcasm} Islam = Religion of Peace {sarcasm}
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verte76 said:Hell, they can boycott. That's a right, too. I wouldn't call the picture of Mohammed with a bomb on his head in particularly good taste. I wonder if I'll see any demonstrations when I'm in Turkey?
indra said:
Free speech doesn't require good taste however.
indra said:
Free speech doesn't require good taste however.
verte76 said:
I agree. Islamic societies tend to be pretty repressive in the expression department when it comes to taste matters and their Prophet. This stuff would get censored in practically every Islamic country. Freedom of speech doesn't exist in these societies, and in some of them neither does freedom of thought. It's illegal to be an atheist in Saudi Arabia, for example. If you say "there is no God" in Saudi Arabia you're asking for it.
U2Man said:Lots of diplomacy going on at the moment as it seems, but our government is firm on this matter; the Danish law will not be changed, there will be no reductions in our civic rights.
verte76 said:It's because you can't separate religion and politics in Islamic countries. I'd like to see a list of the boycotting countries. I think I'll visit the official Danish web site and tell them I'm going out and buying some Danish cheese. I saw some the other day at the store.
This is true, but it is also true (and the boycotting governments' statements reflect this) that Islam in the Arab world especially is as much a badge of national identity and national pride as it is a freestanding set of theological beliefs. It is not quite analogous to Martin Scorcese depicting Jesus having sexual fantasies, for example.Se7en said:the thought that a religion must be placed beyond reproach is ridiculous.
Sorry, but--WTF?! That is quite a sick thing to say. On this logic, you should also be pleased "in some ways" when suicide bombers blow up discotheques, because at least they've shown us what trigger-happy morons piety reduces them to. Which if that really were the causative factor, half the world would be running around merrily slicing up artists all the time.A_Wanderer said:Making a film about Christian misogyny is not going to result in the director being sliced to death in the street and forcing those involved into hiding. I really wish it was in some ways because at least then there would be a genuine cause to say that Christianity and Islam are more or less the same in that respect.
linkThe Muslim world’s two main political bodies say they are seeking a UN resolution, backed by possible sanctions, to protect religions after the publication in Scandinavia of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of Organisation of the Islamic Conference, said in Cairo on Sunday that the international body would “ask the UN general assembly to pass a resolution banning attacks on religious beliefs”.
The deputy secretary-general of the Arab League, Ahmed Ben Helli, confirmed that contacts were under way for such a proposal to be made to the UN.
“Consultations are currently taking place at the highest level between Arab countries and the OIC to ask the UN to adopt a binding resolution banning contempt of religious beliefs and providing for sanctions to be imposed on contravening countries or institutions,” he said.
A_Wanderer said:That is so absurd I think that the UN would go along with it.
Danish Paper Apologizes for Muhammad Cartoons Offense
Bloomberg -- The Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad linking Islam with terrorism has apologized for having offended Muslims around the world.
"We apologize for the fact that the cartoons undeniably have offended many Muslims,'' Carsten Juste, editor-in-chief at Aarhus, Denmark-based Jyllands-Posten said in an open letter published on the broadsheet's Web site late last night.
The apology came after Muslims in Gaza and the West Bank yesterday and Sunday burnt the Danish flag as part of a protest against the 12 cartoons published last September, including one showing Muhammad wearing a bomb in place of a turban. Other cartoons included one of the prophet as a crazed, knife-wielding Bedouin and another of him at the gates of heaven telling suicide bombers: "Stop. Stop. We have run out of virgins!" -- a reference to the belief of some Muslim extremists that male suicide bombers are rewarded in heaven with 72 virgins.
Muslims also criticized Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen for last October declining to meet Muslim ambassadors to discuss censuring the paper.
Critics portrayed the cartoons "as part of a hate campaign against Muslims,'' Juste said. "I must categorically reject this. The last thing we want is to offend other people's religious views, precisely because we believe in religious freedom and respect the individual's right to choose his or her own religion.''
The newspaper didn't apologize for having published the cartoons. "If we really went out and apologized, then the Middle Eastern dictatorships would be able to control what we put in our papers,'' Juste told Danish newswire Ritzau.
"I'm extremely happy that Jyllands-Posten has decided to take this very difficult step,'' Rasmussen told Danish broadcaster Danmarks Radio last night. Rasmussen said he hadn't contacted the newspaper to solicit the apology. "I would now like to appeal to Muslim groups in Denmark to speak out and defuse the situation after Jyllands-Posten's apology,'' he said.
A spokesman for Denmark's Islamic Faith Community, Kasem Ahmad, said on Danish radio Tuesday that "we will clearly and articulately thank the prime minister and Jyllands-Posten for what they have done."
The newspaper, which is Denmark's biggest, yesterday received over 9,000 e-mails containing suggestions as to how it should handle the situation, according to Juste.
"We had no idea that this would arouse so much indignation and irritation in the Muslim world,'' Juste told Ritzau. ``That's what we're apologizing for.''
Rasmussen declined to meet the ambassadors, saying the government can't circumscribe the freedom of the press. He also declined to apologize for the cartoons. "A Danish government cannot apologize on the part of a Danish paper,'' Rasmussen told broadcaster TV2 last night. "I can't call a newspaper and tell them what to put in it, that's not how our society works.''
Jyllands-Posten printed the cartoons on Sept. 30. They were re-printed on Jan. 9 by Magazinet, a Norwegian Christian newspaper with a circulation of about 5,000. Magazinet editor Vebjoern Selbekk today said he, too, "regrets if the drawings were offensive to Muslims.'' The newspaper printed the cartoons in an article about the controversy in Denmark, he said. "We have not done this to provoke Muslims across the world,'' Selbekk said in a statement on the newspaper's Web site.
"A lot of the reaction we've seen stems from the fact that people in the Middle East were misinformed,'' Rose said in an interview with Denmark's TV2 today. "We saw British media showing pictures of the prophet,'' linking the images to Jyllands-Posten, "representing him as a pig. We never printed, nor would any Danish paper ever print, such pictures.''
If it really winds up being limited to "threatening" words and behavior, and these protections are already afforded to Jews and Sikhs, then it wouldn't really be all that new and radical. But you're right, the draft championed by the government is something far more disturbing.Although the upper chamber cannot reject the bill, as it was a manifesto commitment, peers inflicted a series of amendments on the legislation.
These would restrict the new offence of inciting religious hatred to threatening words and behaviour rather than an original definition also covering insults and abuse.
They would also have required the offence to be intentional and specify that proselytising, discussion, criticism, insult, abuse and ridicule of religion, belief or religious practice would not be an offence. The bill - a Labour manifesto pledge - would give Christian and Muslim believers the same protection currently afforded Sikh and Jewish communities under existing racial hatred laws.
And I still tend to assume was in fact the goal. At the risk of sounding like a mule.A_Wanderer said:It highlights the agenda of certain community leaders and shows that they can run entirely contrary to standards and freedoms of the society that they live in.