What to do about Terrorism? Should news media publish Charlie Hebdo cartoons?

Terrorism is defined in the Terrorism Act 2000. (1)

Jonathan Powell was on Andrew Neils' Daily Politics on 8/1/15 with Maajid Nawaz of Quilliam foundation and Douglas Murray - the day after Charlie Hebdo Paris shootings. Nawaz said that the Charlie killers and others seek to create civil war between Muslims and non-muslims throughout Europe. Muslim liberals need to speak up to reform Islamic Blasphemy laws. Murray said the Hebdo killers were seeking to enforce Islamic blasphemy laws on the free west. For a decade, the UK media has been cowed by the threat of Islamist violence into not publishing cartoons of Mohammed. Murray says . Terrorism works. UK media should publish Mohammed cartoons on front pages (Powell agreed) en masse at a particular hour - to 'share the risk'. But before doing so, UK Government should protect UK media from attack by Islamists. When gunmen shout 'Allah Akbah' - it is everything to do with Islam, said Murray. (2,3)

In other news, concerning the Charlie Hebdo attack: the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten will not print Prophet Mohammad cartoons. They say "We have lived with the fear of a terrorist attack for nine years, and yes, that is the explanation why we do not reprint the cartoons, whether it be our own or Charlie Hebdo's," Jyllands-Posten said. "We are also aware that we therefore bow to violence and intimidation." "Denmark's other major newspapers have all republished cartoons from the French satirical weekly as part of the coverage of the attack which killed 12 people in Paris on Wednesday 7/1/15." (4)

Buzzfeed summarises other news organisations views about publishing  / not publishing the M cartoons. (5)

Change.org have a petition calling on UK and USA news organisations worldwide to publish the Charlie cartoons. (6)

Stephen Fry calls on news organisations to publish. (7)

sources:
(1) https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/380939/ProscribedOrganisations.pdf
(2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04xtkdx/daily-politics-08012015
(3) http://www.meetup.com/Cafe-Philo-Bournemouth/events/219170608/#
(4) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11334891/Charlie-Hebdo-attack-Jyllands-Posten-will-not-print-Prophet-Mohammad-cartoons.html
(5) http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/some-outlets-are-censoring-charlie-hebdos-satirical-cartoons#.ajZlVvK10
(6) https://www.change.org/p/editors-and-journalists-around-the-world-publish-charlie-hebdo-s-mohammed-cartoons-in-solidarity-with-the-victims-of-censorship-and-violence
(7) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/stephen-fry-calls-on-the-worlds-media-to-publish-charlie-hebdo-cartoons-9965449.html

Finally – the blasphemy law is dead and buried

Finally – the blasphemy law is dead and buried via NSS Newsline 9/5/08
The House of Commons voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to support the abolition of the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel. This was the final stage in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, and the amendment was carried by 378 votes to 57. The Bill received Royal Assent yesterday, so the blasphemy law is now officially dead and buried.

In a tetchy and bad-tempered parliamentary debate, Conservatives put in their final bid to block the abolition, arguing that it represented a significant step in the secularising of Britain. Some raised the spectre of it being the beginning of a process that would eventually lead to disestablishment. Government Minister Maria Eagle MP assured MPs that there was no such "hidden agenda".

Other MPs were, though, less shy about hoping that one day the Church of England would be disestablished. David Howarth, Liberal Democrat shadow Solicitor General said:

"It is the policy of my party to work towards the disestablishment of the Church, and the separation of Church and state. I am fairly comfortable with that position."

Mr Howarth continued: "The principle of the separation of Church and state is not about the separation of religion and politics, which I think is impossible. We cannot separate people's moral, religious views from their political views. We are talking about the state, not about society, and about the religious commitments of the state, not about whether people in society are religious or not. In the course of debate we have heard three separate arguments against the idea of state neutrality in religion. One of them; it might be called the "this is a Christian country" argument.

"We do indeed have an established Church, we have Acts of Parliament such as the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which mandates an act of broadly Christian collective worship in schools, and we have Prayers in this place. The trouble with that point is that what is, is not necessarily what ought to be. It ignores the new circumstances in which we find ourselves, which make it important now more than ever to reject the idea of the mixture of Church and state, any notion of theocracy or any hint that the state should be built on a particular religious view."

NSS honorary associate Dr Evan Harris, Lib Dem MP for Abingdon and Oxford (the original architect of this amendment), challenged Tory MPs who were arguing for the preservation of blasphemy laws. In an earlier debate that evening on the same Bill they had argued that new proposals to outlaw hatred against homosexuals would unnecessarily restrict the right of religious people to make clear their disapproval of homosexuality. Now they were arguing that the blasphemy law was necessary to protect religious people against offence. It seemed that their defence of free speech was not entirely consistent.

Dr Harris said: "When it came to the issue of incitement to homophobic hatred, we heard a number of speeches and interventions from Conservative Members claiming that freedom of speech was critical and that freedom of expression was under threat. Yet when it comes to an issue—blasphemy, as opposed to incitement to hatred—that causes individuals themselves no damage, making the case for proscribing it much weaker, those very same people argue that freedom of expression has to go in order to maintain their version of no change. They want to maintain some symbolic law or the safety of the UK constitution, which they fear may be shaken to its foundations by the abolition of these unnecessary and discriminatory laws."

Read the whole debate here

Celebration As Abolition Of Iniquitous Blasphemy Law Is Approved In Parliament

The National Secular Society (NSS) welcomes the passing by the House of Lords last night, Wednesday March 5 2008, of an amendment abolishing the blasphemy law by 148 votes to 87.

The fiery debate had a near record turn-out of bishops, who were split between those accepting the inevitability of change and those lamenting the signal abolition would give about the decline in religious influence and the secularisation of society. Some feared that abolition would unleash a tide of blasphemous publications. A URL linking to the debate is given below.

Terry Sanderson, President of the NSS said: "This is the culmination of the Society's 140-year fight to abolish this medieval law under which many innocent victims have suffered. Even in the 20th century, one of my predecessors was jailed for blasphemy, and an old man was sentenced to hard labour, causing his premature death. The laws have been criticised recently as being uncertain, without penalty and widely believed not to be compliant with Human Rights.

"I pay tribute to all those who have suffered under this cruel law, denying freedom of expression, and to those before me who have campaigned for its abolition.

"Our celebrations will be overshadowed by the knowledge that parliaments elsewhere in the world will soon be pressurised into passing a new law even more pernicious than blasphemy. It will outlaw so-called defamation of religion. Pressure to pass this law is coming from a bloc of Islamic countries organised by the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Conference).

Having made their demands at the UN Human Rights Commission, they are now planning to lobby the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Nations respecting Human Rights must speak out against the defamation of religion law as it undermines the freedom of expression on which our democracy, and indeed our civilisation, depends.”

A one-page report of the debate

The full debate transcript in PDF form

6 March 2008

common law of blasphemy and blasphemous libel abolished

via Margaret @ Suffolk Humanists - The National Secular Society reports:

"After an acrimonious debate in which the bogeyman of secularism was repeatedly invoked, the House of Lords on Wednesday March 5 2008 accepted the amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill that abolishes the common law of blasphemy and blasphemous libel."

Lords Approve Abolition Of Blasphemy

After an acrimonious debate in which the bogeyman of secularism was repeatedly invoked, the House of Lords on Wednesday March 5 2008 accepted the amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill that abolishes the common law of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.

The amendment had originally been introduced by Lib Dem MP Dr Evan Harris in the House of Commons, but the Government had persuaded him to withdraw it after promising to introduce its own amendment later in the Lords. This it has now done, although – if Baroness Andrews’ speech was anything to go by – with something less than enthusiasm.

The Bishops in the House were divided, some saying that the abolition was unnecessary and undesirable and others saying that it was inevitable and that the Church should therefore concede. The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, had agreed to the Government’s amendment during a consultation, but expressed strong reservations about the timing of the move.

Prominent Christian activist Baroness O’Cathain launched a blistering attack on the amendment, with particular fury aimed at Evan Harris. Lady O’Cathain maintained that abolition of blasphemy would unleash a torrent of abuse towards Christians.

Lib Dem peer Lord Avebury pressurised the Government into keeping its word by tabling his own abolition amendment. He also introduced other amendments to the Bill that would clear out some other ancient Church privileges, such as Section 2 of the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act of 1860, under which Peter Tatchell was charged when he interrupted a sermon by the then-Archbishop of Canterbury in Canterbury Cathedral. These further amendments were rejected by the Government and opposed by the bishops.

The Government had conducted a “short and sharp” consultation with the Church of England about the amendment, and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York both agreed not to oppose the abolition, although both questioned its timing.

Evan Harris said that this debate had been going on for 21 years, since the Law Commission had recommended abolition of the law, and for the Church it would never be the right time.

Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society attended the debate and welcomed the Lords’ decision. He said: “The National Secular Society has been campaigning to abolish the blasphemy laws for 140 years. The laws have an iniquitous history of persecution, and because it is a common law offence with no limit on punishment, it has resulted in executions and imprisonments with hard labour for people who wrote and said things that would, in the modern day, be considered trivial. It is disgraceful that such a relic of religious savagery has survived into the 21st century.”

Mr Porteous Wood pointed out that although the UK blasphemy laws are in the course of abolition, there is growing pressure in the Islamic world to outlaw so-called religious defamation. This pressure is being applied at the United Nations and its Human Rights Council. He commented: “If the United Nations Human Rights Council succumbs to the pressure from the Islamic countries to permit laws against religious defamation, it will be a major blow to freedom of expression, which underpins both democracy and civilisation itself. Nations who cherish freedom should wake up to the dangers of such moves, rather than sit idly by as they have done so far.”

Read the whole of the debate on this historic step (starting at column 1118)

Read the debate in full - PDF format
8 March 2008

The awful squeal of fundamentalism

• Nick Cohen
• The Observer,
• Sunday March 2 2008

... In language filled with the optimism of the struggles against 20th-century totalitarianism, Article 19 of the

UN Declaration of Human Rights states: 'Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.'

But faced with a conflict between high principle and a reactionary stunt, the UN Secretary General chose the side of the hysterics. A spokeswoman for Ban Ki-moon said that he thought that the new cartoon controversy showed that 'freedom of expression should be exercised responsibly and in a way that respects all religious beliefs'.

All religious beliefs, that is. Even if they do not respect each other. Even if by the normal standards of intellectual life, they make no sense. Even if the behaviour of their followers does not inspire respect, but fear.

If the UN were to order us to 'respect all political beliefs', conservatives would say they weren't prepared to respect communists, leftists would say they weren't prepared to respect fascists and everyone else would burst out laughing. Yet the UN Human Rights Council is proposing in all seriousness to protect religion by doctoring its universal defence of freedom of expression.

The OIC is pushing it to approve a super-blasphemy law that would make it an offence to 'defame' any religion. Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society said attending the discussions was an Orwellian experience, with speakers using the language of liberalism to justify oppression. 'Anyone seeking to draw attention to the capital offence of apostasy in Islamic countries will be lucky to be heard,' he reported. 'Anything deemed the slightest bit critical of Islam is immediately jumped upon.'

To the bafflement of outsiders, communist China and Cuba have joined the states of the Islamic conference. Both are officially atheist and China persecutes its Muslim minority. But what unites dictatorships is more important than what divides them and no one should be surprised that communist elites will use any weapon available to assault principles which threaten their power.

Sitting in Britain, it is easy to feel superior. We can dismiss the UN as a club without rules that negates its own standards by granting membership to countries that break every article in the declaration of human rights.

You need only look around to realise that complacency is unwarranted. Last week, Channel 4 launched a libel action against West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service, which had accused its film-makers of inventing all-too-real scenes of clerics preaching misogyny, anti-semitism and homophobia. They must have found accurate investigative reporting disrespectful. The government seeks to deny us the very language we need to describe religious terror and insists civil servants don't call Islamic extremists Islamic extremists but 'anti-Islamic extremists'.

He isn't alone in succumbing to obfuscation and appeasement. The past five years have been among the most shameful in BBC history. It presents tiny groups of extreme right wingers as the authentic voice of Islam while shunning liberal-minded Muslims or asking hard questions of those who would oppress them.

Meanwhile, it is not only authoritarian states at the UN which want a universal blasphemy law. The Archbishop of Canterbury is as keen on criminalising criticism.