Dieudonné M'bala M'bala Hành động của nhà nước Pháp bắt giam hơn 50 công dân, đặc biệt là danh hài Dieudonné chì vì anh ta viết một câu nói đùa trên Facebook, và vì có quá trình là một danh hài với những câu chuyện hài diễu nhạo báng Do Thái , ngay sau cuộc tuần hành vĩ đại "vinh danh Charlie Hebdo", đã minh chứng rõ ràng bọn nhà nước chính phủ chẳng bao giờ thật tâm tôn trọng tư do ngôn luận. Chúng đang tiến hành âm mưu thâm độc của chúng đã đề ra!
(Ngay những cử chỉ mà Do Thái cho là xúc phạm "trí nhớ Holocaust" như lối chào "quenelle" chúi tay xuống đối nghịch với giơ tay lên như Hitler!!! Hình trên cầu thủ Pháp Nicolas Anelka đã bị điều tra vì "thể hiện tác động này!!!
Những Ai chủ quan từng cho rằng chỉ có Việt Nam, Bắc Hàn,, giáo quyền Hồi quốc mới có những luật bán khai vớ vẩn như thế này, đây là cơ hội thức tỉnh)
Chúng chỉ muốn sử dụng tự do ngôn luận để tấn công đối thủ Hồi giáo, các chế độ chưa thuần phục, và gây chia rẽ căm thù giữa các cộng đồng quần chúng để dễ dàng cai trị. Chia để trị!
Bọn giáo quyền cũng lợi dụng thời cơ củng cố quyền lực. Đứng đầu là tên giáo hoàng đồng lõa tội phạm sát nhân với quân phiệt Argentina,
1- Pope Francis Can't Escape Argentina's Dark Past - The Wire
2-The Dark Past Of Pope Francis | newmatilda.com
3-Pope Francis: questions remain over his role
4-Pope Francis Has Links To 'Dirty War' - Business Insider
Giáo hoàng của Vatican đã tấn công giá trị tự do ngôn luận với những nhận định kém cỏi ấu trĩ, nhằm bảo vệ đặc quyền lừa bịp quần chúng của tôn giáo. Gã giáo hoàng tuyên bố:
"Nếu người bạn tốt của Tôi, tiến sĩ Gasparri nói một câu chửi thề về mẹ tôi, ông ta sẽ đón nhận một quả đấm. Điều này là bình thường! Điều này là bình thường! chuyện bình thường! Người ta không thể khiêu khích, không thể xúc phạm tín ngưỡng người khác, người ta không thể chế diễu tín ngưỡng"(“If my good friend Dr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch. It’s normal. It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.” )
Không, nó không bình thường, nhất định là không thể bình thường, ngay cả trong nền pháp lý thế tục trong xã hội, cũng như trong tín lý của Công giáo mà hắn đang là giáo hoàng, kẻ lãnh đạo "thay mặt Chúa Jesu" ở trần gian này theo quan điểm thần học của chính ky-tô giáo (Christianism)!
Theo pháp lý, hành động đấm người khác vì bất cứ lý do gì, ngoài quyền tự vệ (self defense) là tội phạm bạo hành (assault). Bạn có thể thưa kiện kẻ xúc phạm cha mẹ của bạn ra tòa với tội danh "phỉ báng" (libel laws- Defamation Libel - Legal Information Institute). Có thể thôi, chứ chưa chắc thắng, vì chỉ là câu chửi thề, tùy từng hoàn cảnh tại sao người ta chửi v.v
Theo tín lý bác ái bao dung và rộng lượng tha thứ- "ai đánh má trái, hãy đưa má phải" của Jesus huấn thị, thì hành động đấm người khác chỉ vì một câu nói xúc phạm, là phạm tội bạo hành với tha nhân và phạm đức bác ái vị tha. (bài giảng trên cánh đồng của Jesu)
Rõ ràng, xét cả hai mặt đạo và đời, điều mà gã giáo hoàng Francis cho là "bình thường" này, nhất định không bình thường, và càng không thể bình thường nơi cửa miệng của một kẻ "đại diện Jesus (Christ) tại trần gian" này. Thế mà hầu như hơn một tỉ cái đầu của giáo dân chưa hề có ai lên tiếng bênh vực cho tín lý chân chính của Jesu, chống lại sự sai trái của giáo hội, giáo hoàng (defend the Faith, against the Church)
Dĩ nhiên không phải là bọn chính khách và tôn giáo không biết, không hiểu về luật đạo, lệ đời, cũng như triết học chính trị về quyền tự do ngôn luận. Nhưng chúng cố tình lờ vì tin rằng trong "không khí" đang căng thẳng choáng ngợp với sự vụ Charlie Hebdo, với sự đồng loã của báo chí chính qui, quần chúng sẽ mất phản ứng đúng đắn, và sẽ dễ dàng đồng thuận với bất cứ điều gì chúng tuyên bố!
Chúng đã đúng.... rất đúng... nhưng chỉ đúng có một nửa.
Quần chúng mất tinh thần , đa số báo chí chính qui tay sai đồng lõa, không mấy ai lên tiếng phản kháng bảo vệ bênh vực quyền ngôn luận của danh hài Dieudonné đúng mức, theo đúng pháp lý dựa trên nguyên lý mà Voltaire đã tuyên bố:
"Tôi không đồng ý với điều bạn nói, nhưng sẽ bênh vực đến chết cái quyền nói điều đó của bạn"....
Họ đã mặc nhiên bỏ rơi một đồng loại Dieudonné, họ nghĩ rằng họ chỉ bỏ rơi một "kẻ khác ta", nhưng thật sự họ đã và đang bỏ rơi chính quyền tự do của họ. Và tất cả có vẻ nhất thời đồng tình với lời nói vừa ngu, vừa kém, vừa gian của gã giáo hoàng tội phạm, lời nói đồng hành với bọn giáo sĩ các nơi, và đám chính trị gia xảo quyệt khắp chốn ...
Tuy nhiên, thật may mắn cho chúng ta, vẫn còn rất nhiều người sáng suốt lật mặt nạ bọn lạm dụng quyền bính thế quyền và thần quyền này. Như tờ The Guardian (On Charlie Hebdo Pope Francis is using the wife-beater's defence) , với bài viết lật tẩy sự kém cỏi ngu xuẩn trong câu nói của Giáo hoàng cũng như những tuyên bố tương tự của bọn lãnh đạo Hồi giáo;
Jon Stuart của The Dailyshow 47, lột trần tính gian manh sống sượng của nhà nước Pháp và chủ nghĩa quốc gia Pháp của đám cực hũu Le Pen; và đặc biệt là Glenn Greenwald của The Intercept, thông minh lột trần sự đểu giả của bọn nhà nước báo chí Âu Mỹ Do Thái với những biếm họa về sự tàn ác cũng như sự khống trị nền pháp lý, chính trị và báo chí nước Mỹ của đám Do Thái.
Quyền "tự do ngôn luận" là quyền được phát biểu bày tỏ mọi ý kiến quan điểm mà không bị đe dọa hay trừng phạt (to express one's own ideas freely without fear of intimidation or prosecution)
Dĩ nhiên, vì lý do "lịch sự" hay "hài hòa" một người, một nhóm, có thể tự nguyện giới hạn phát biểu mạnh mẽ một ý kiến nào đó. Nhưng phải là do "nhận thức tự nguyện", chứ không phải vì sợ hãi đe doạ. Mọi người có quyền lên án, mắng chửi một kẻ thiếu lịch sự, kém hành xử, nhưng tuyệt đối không được quyền đe dọa hay ngăn cấm bắt bớ. Đó là lý do tại sao cả 3 tổng thống Jacque Chirac, Sarkozy, và Hollande đã chỉ có thể kêu gọi "năn nỉ" tờ Charlie gia giảm cường độ biếm chích, chứ không thể đe dọa hay bắt bớ!
Và đây cũng là lý do tại sao Charlie Hebdo đã xúc phạm không chừa một ai trong 45 năm qua, nhưng chưa từng bị ngăn cấm hay bắt bớ đe dọa của ai, trừ nhóm Hồi giáo! Kể cả bị thưa kiện ra tòa, nhưng chưa bao giờ bị thua, bị phạt trong suốt 45 năm từ khi ra đời 1970!
Và quyền ngôn luận nói chung chỉ có thắng - ký giả không bị tội còn được bồi thường -trong vụ ký giả biếm họa Siné "nhạo báng Do Thái" con trai của Sarkozy- 2008- Sau đó tờ báo Charlie Hebdo bị áp lực từ Do Thái phải sa thải ông Siné- Siné kiện báo Charlie Hebdo ra tòa- kết quả ký giả Siné thắng kiện được bồi thường 40,000 euros. Nhưng cũng bị nhóm Do Thái Jewish Defense League đe dọa tính mạng.
Jon Stewart trong chương trình The Daily Show 47 ngày 14-01-201 (quí độc giả có khả năng Anh ngữ cần nên xem) đã chính xác trình bày nguyên lý tự do ngôn luận và giải pháp cho những biếm diễu, báng bổ, nếu thật sự cho là "quá đáng xúc phạm":
Đó chính là cái quyền tự do chọn lựa của mọi người. Không ai có quyền dí súng bắt bạn đi xem hài của ông Dieudonné, hay đọc Facebook của ông ta; bạn có quyền phản đối không mua vé, hay quyền tự do chọn lựa tổ chức vận động mọi người tẩy chay Đieudonné, không đi xem- hoặc nhấn nút "unfriend" trong Facebook.
Cũng như mọi người, ai cũng có quyền tự do chọn lựa tẩy chay, lên án Charlie Hebdo, không mua báo Charlie Hebdo v.v Nhưng không ai được quyền vi phạm ngăn cấm, đe dọa quyền tự do ngôn luận nền tảng của nhân quyền và dân quyền này của Charlie Hebdo. Đó là lý do nhiều người dù không đồng thuận với một số tranh của Charlie, từng lên án Charlie Hebdo, nhưng vẫn mạnh mẽ lên tiếng bênh vực cái quyền được đăng tải báng bổ của Charlie Hebdo.
Xét những diễn biến vừa qua và những dữ kiện mập mờ của sự vụ khủng bố như Nhân Chủ đã tường trình và nhận định ở bài viết trước, rõ ràng đây là một trò "giả địch" có tính toán kỹ lưỡng để đạt 3 mục tiêu của bọn nhà nước Âu Mỹ DoThái.
Chúng đang đạt được cả 3. Chúng đã gây thêm căm thù Hồi giáo; chúng đã làm lu mờ sự ủng hộ của thế giới đối với nỗ lực độc lập của Palestine và tăng cường ủng hộ tội phạm Do Thái; và chúng đang tiến hành củng cố quyền lực nhà nước với những đạo luật tấn công tự do ngôn luận của chính quần chúng với một quần chúng đang buông xuôi vì sợ hãi và hận thù đố kỵ, mất khả năng đối kháng.
Hãy nhìn lại xem, trong quá khứ, tín lý Công giáo đã từng bị Charlie "báng bổ một cách thậm tệ", mà có vấn đề khủng bố giết người hay căng thẳng xã hội gì không?
Và trước đây, Xã hội Âu Mỹ Úc chưa từng cho là bị xúc phạm hay bạo loạn căng thẳng vì những cái hình biếm họa báng bổ cùng một lúc 4 tôn giáo lớn , Do Thái giáo, Kitô Giáo, Phật giáo, và Ấn Giáo như hình dưới đây: .
Tại sao? Bởi nơi những xã hội Âu Mỹ Úc từng tiến bộ, dân trí cao, hầu hết những ai có trình độ thấu hiểu giá trị tự thân và nền tự do báo chí một cách căn bản, đều biết rằng BIẾM CHÍCH, MỈA NHẠO, KHIÊU KHÍCH, BÁNG BỔ chính là CHỨC NĂNG, là VAI TRÒ CĂN BẢN của HÍ HỌA! (That’s the role of a satirical magazine: to stick two fingers up to propriety. It is a belch in the face of established taste and dignity. You can buy it or not, find it funny or not). Và nhất là họ đều hiều rằng độc giả ai cũng có quyền tự do ngôn luận, và tự do chọn lựa quyết định mua đọc hay không, có thấy vui hài hay không; cũng như có quyền vận động lên án tẩy chay những bức tranh này v.v. một cách ngôn luận tự do.
Và những người thấu hiểu tự do ngôn luận cũng nắm vững rằng nếu không có những kẻ báng bổ bóc trần cặn kẽ những tín lý không chỉ phi khoa học, cực kỳ vớ vẩn bán khai, mà còn bạo ngược, thì bọn giáo quyền, thế quyền sẽ thao túng tác hại như đã từng tác hại trong quá khứ, cũng như hiện nay tại nhiều quốc gia thần quyền Hồi giáo, Phật giáo, Ki tô giáo như chúng tôi, Nhân Chủ đã vạch ra trong 2 bài- Phật Giáo, một "Tôn Giáo Hòa Bình? và Vài Suy Nghĩ về "Kinh Thánh" và Tôn Giáo .
Tại sao hôm nay, đầu thế kỷ 21, năm 2015 này lại có vấn đề? Chúng ta phải bình tâm suy ngẫm và trả lời. Vì đây chính là thời điểm sinh tử của nền tự do của chính Nhân Loại chúng ta.
Hôm nay, riêng nước Pháp, xã hội Pháp, một trong một vài xã hội tiến bộ hàng đầu về nhân bản, nhân quyền, và dân quyền với những vĩ nhân tiên phong như Étienne de La Boétie, như Voltaire François-Marie Arouet; và cận đại với những danh gia mở đầu báng bổ không giới hạn, không chừa một góc cạnh "tôn kính linh thiêng" nào mà họ không đụng đến, như Jacques Derrida, như Michel Foucault, như Jean Genet, như Jean-Paul Sartre v.v hiện đã biến dạng và đang thoái hóa trở về thời trung cổ thánh chiến, căm thù hồi giáo và chống di dân, nhất là quá sợ sệt bọn Do Thái!
Phẩm tính tốt đẹp của một nuớc Pháp với châm ngôn "Tự do, Bình Đẳng, Thân Ái" Liberté, égalité, fraternité đang bị bọn nhà nước, tôn giáo, và Do thái lũng đoạn đang phai nhạt mất mát dần dần.
Chính chúng ta, những ai còn đủ sáng suốt nhận thức trân quí giá trị tự do, phải luôn tỉnh thức và kiên nhẫn. Chúng ta cần tôi luyện khả năng thấu bật và kiến thức cần thiết để vận động dân trí, kiên trì giải thích tường tận đến quần chúng những ý nghĩa tương quan thiết yếu nền tảng của quyền tự do ngôn luận.
Đừng ngây ngô trông chờ đám khoa bảng, báo chí tay sai của bọn giáo quyền và chính phủ. Tự do ngôn luận là nền tảng sinh tử của cả nền tự do con người.
Bọn tôn giáo và nhà nước, một khi chúng tước đoạt được một quyền của một người, tức là chúng sẽ tước đoạt hết mọi quyền của tất cả mọi người.
Chúng Tôi, trang Nhân Chủ là Dieudonné M'bala M'bala!
Chúng ta, tất cả cần phải là Dieudonné M'bala M'bala!
18-01-2015
nkptc
TB:
Để tránh phí giờ trả lời với những phản đối và lên án tác giả về việc gọi Giáo Hoàng "khả kính" Francis của trên dưới tỉ người là "Gã", "Tên". Tôi xin nhấn mạnh rằng Tôi chưa hề biết bẻ chữ để chiều lòng ai, và Tôi không có bổn phận phải né tránh giả vờ gọi một cách kính trọng một kẻ mà Tôi biết và có chứng cớ là kẻ tội phạm sát nhân, gian trá rõ ràng, chỉ vì có hàng tỉ người u mê vẫn kính trọng kẻ đó.
Cũng như Tôi vẫn kính trọng vị Giáo Hoàng Jean Paul II, không phải chỉ vì chiều lòng hàng tỉ người tín hũu kính trọng vị cố giáo hoàng này, mà vì chính hành xử đáng kính của Ông lúc sinh tiền, với cung cách bình dị, chan hòa, những nỗ lực chống độc tài, bênh vực người cô thế, nghèo khó, và nhất là nỗ lực điều chỉnh xin lỗi nhân loại về tội ác của giáo hội Công giáo trong tiến trình hiệp thông các tôn giáo. Dù Ông vẫn chưa thể vượt qua để kiện toàn tiến trình dang dở này. Tôi kính trọng Ông, không phải vì Ông là Giáo Hoàng của Vatican; nhưng vì Ông là một người tốt đáng kính, Ông đã minh chứng giá trị tốt đẹp của một con người bằng hành xử của chính Ông trong chức vụ tôn giáo của Ông.
Khi vẫn còn có người trong quí độc giả gọi "tên" Hồ Chí Minh, "tên" Mao Trạch Đông; "thằng" Thánh Tụ Hồi quốc Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi v.v thì cũng phải chấp nhận người khác được quyền gọi tất cả những nhân vật họ coi là tội phạm đáng khinh bỉ!
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Nguồn và Tham Khảo thêm
France Arrests a Comedian For His Facebook Comments, Showing the Sham of the West’s “Free Speech” Celebration
The apparently criminal viewpoint he posted on Facebook declared: “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly.” Investigators concluded that this was intended to mock the “Je Suis Charlie” slogan and express support for the perpetrator of the Paris supermarket killings (whose last name was “Coulibaly”). Expressing that opinion is evidently a crime in the Republic of Liberté, which prides itself on a line of 20th Century intellectuals – from Sartre and Genet to Foucault and Derrida – whose hallmark was leaving no orthodoxy or convention unmolested, no matter how sacred.
Since that glorious “free speech” march, France has reportedly opened 54 criminal cases for “condoning terrorism.” AP reported this morning that “France ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and glorifying terrorism.”
As pernicious as this arrest and related “crackdown” on some speech obviously is, it provides a critical value: namely, it underscores the utter scam that was this week’s celebration of free speech in the west. The day before the Charlie Hebdo attack, I coincidentally documented the multiple cases in the west – including in the U.S. – where Muslims have been prosecuted and even imprisoned for their political speech. Vanishingly few of this week’s bold free expression mavens have ever uttered a peep of protest about any of those cases – either before the Charlie Hebdo attack or since. That’s because “free speech,” in the hands of many westerners, actually means: it is vital that the ideas I like be protected, and the right to offend groups I dislike be cherished; anything else is fair game.
It is certainly true that many of Dieudonné’s views and statements are noxious, although he and his supporters insist that they are “satire” and all in good humor. In that regard, the controversy they provoke is similar to the now-much-beloved Charlie Hebdo cartoons (one French leftist insists the cartoonists were mocking rather than adopting racism and bigotry, but Olivier Cyran, a former writer at the magazine who resigned in 2001, wrote a powerful 2013 letter with ample documentation condemning Charlie Hebdo for descending in the post-9/11 era into full-scale, obsessive anti-Muslim bigotry).
Despite the obvious threat to free speech posed by this arrest, it is inconceivable that any mainstream western media figures would start tweeting “#JeSuisDieudonné” or would upload photographs of themselves performing his ugly Nazi-evoking arm gesture in “solidarity” with his free speech rights. That’s true even if he were murdered for his ideas rather than “merely” arrested and prosecuted for them. That’s because last week’s celebration of the Hebdo cartoonists (well beyond mourning their horrifically unjust murders) was at least as much about approval for their anti-Muslim messages as it was about the free speech rights that were invoked in their support - at least as much.
The vast bulk of the stirring “free speech” tributes over the last week have been little more than an attempt to protect and venerate speech that degrades disfavored groups while rendering off-limits speech that does the same to favored groups, all deceitfully masquerading as lofty principles of liberty. In response to my article containing anti-Jewish cartoons on Monday - which I posted to demonstrate the utter selectivity and inauthenticity of this newfound adoration of offensive speech - I was subjected to endless contortions justifying why anti-Muslim speech is perfectly great and noble while anti-Jewish speech is hideously offensive and evil (the most frequently invoked distinction – “Jews are a race/ethnicity while Muslims aren’t” – would come as a huge surprise to the world’s Asian, black, Latino and white Jews, as well as to those who identify as “Muslim” as part of their cultural identity even though they don’t pray five times a day). As always: it’s free speech if it involves ideas I like or attacks groups I dislike, but it’s something different when I’m the one who is offended.
Think about the “defending terrorism” criminal offense for which Dieudonné has been arrested. Should it really be a criminal offense – causing someone to be arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned – to say something along these lines: western countries like France have been bringing violence for so long to Muslims in their countries that I now believe it’s justifiable to bring violence to France as a means of making them stop? If you want “terrorism defenses” like that to be criminally prosecuted (as opposed to societally shunned), how about those who justify, cheer for and glorify the invasion and destruction of Iraq, with its “Shock and Awe” slogan signifying an intent to terrorize the civilian population into submission and its monstrous tactics in Fallujah? Or how about the psychotic calls from a Fox News host, when discussing Muslims radicals, to “kill them ALL.” Why is one view permissible and the other criminally barred – other than because the force of law is being used to control political discourse and one form of terrorism (violence in the Muslim world) is done by, rather than to, the west?
For those interested, my comprehensive argument against all “hate speech” laws and other attempts to exploit the law to police political discourse is here. That essay, notably, was written to denounce a proposal by a French minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, to force Twitter to work with the French government to delete tweets which officials like this minister (and future unknown ministers) deem “hateful.” France is about as legitimate a symbol of free expression as Charlie Hebdo, which fired one of its writers in 2009 for a single supposedly anti-Semitic sentence in the midst of publishing an orgy of anti-Muslim (not just anti-Islam) content. This week’s celebration of France – and the gaggle of tyrannical leaders who joined it – had little to do with free speech and much to do with suppressing ideas they dislike while venerating ideas they prefer.
Perhaps the most intellectually corrupted figure in this regard is, unsurprisingly, France’s most celebrated (and easily the world’s most overrated) public intellectual, the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy. He demands criminal suppression of anything smacking of anti-Jewish views (he called for Dieudonné’s shows to be banned (“I don’t understand why anyone even sees the need for debate”) and supported the 2009 firing of the Charlie Hebdo writer for a speech offense against Jews), while shamelessly parading around all last week as the Churchillian champion of free expression when it comes to anti-Muslim cartoons.
But that, inevitably, is precisely the goal, and the effect, of laws that criminalize certain ideas and those who support such laws: to codify a system where the views they like are sanctified and the groups to which they belong protected. The views and groups they most dislike – and only them – are fair game for oppression and degradation.
The arrest of this French comedian so soon after the epic Paris free speech march underscores this point more powerfully than anything I could have written about the selectivity and fraud of this week’s “free speech” parade. It also shows – yet again – why those who want to criminalize the ideas they most dislike are at least as dangerous and tyrannical as the ideas they target: at least.
Photo: Chesnot/Getty Images
Correction: This post originally identified Dieudonné as Muslim. That was in error, and the article has been edited to reflect that correction.
==
Since that glorious “free speech” march, France has reportedly opened 54 criminal cases for “condoning terrorism.” AP reported this morning that “France ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and glorifying terrorism.”
As pernicious as this arrest and related “crackdown” on some speech obviously is, it provides a critical value: namely, it underscores the utter scam that was this week’s celebration of free speech in the west. The day before the Charlie Hebdo attack, I coincidentally documented the multiple cases in the west – including in the U.S. – where Muslims have been prosecuted and even imprisoned for their political speech. Vanishingly few of this week’s bold free expression mavens have ever uttered a peep of protest about any of those cases – either before the Charlie Hebdo attack or since. That’s because “free speech,” in the hands of many westerners, actually means: it is vital that the ideas I like be protected, and the right to offend groups I dislike be cherished; anything else is fair game.
It is certainly true that many of Dieudonné’s views and statements are noxious, although he and his supporters insist that they are “satire” and all in good humor. In that regard, the controversy they provoke is similar to the now-much-beloved Charlie Hebdo cartoons (one French leftist insists the cartoonists were mocking rather than adopting racism and bigotry, but Olivier Cyran, a former writer at the magazine who resigned in 2001, wrote a powerful 2013 letter with ample documentation condemning Charlie Hebdo for descending in the post-9/11 era into full-scale, obsessive anti-Muslim bigotry).
Despite the obvious threat to free speech posed by this arrest, it is inconceivable that any mainstream western media figures would start tweeting “#JeSuisDieudonné” or would upload photographs of themselves performing his ugly Nazi-evoking arm gesture in “solidarity” with his free speech rights. That’s true even if he were murdered for his ideas rather than “merely” arrested and prosecuted for them. That’s because last week’s celebration of the Hebdo cartoonists (well beyond mourning their horrifically unjust murders) was at least as much about approval for their anti-Muslim messages as it was about the free speech rights that were invoked in their support - at least as much.
The vast bulk of the stirring “free speech” tributes over the last week have been little more than an attempt to protect and venerate speech that degrades disfavored groups while rendering off-limits speech that does the same to favored groups, all deceitfully masquerading as lofty principles of liberty. In response to my article containing anti-Jewish cartoons on Monday - which I posted to demonstrate the utter selectivity and inauthenticity of this newfound adoration of offensive speech - I was subjected to endless contortions justifying why anti-Muslim speech is perfectly great and noble while anti-Jewish speech is hideously offensive and evil (the most frequently invoked distinction – “Jews are a race/ethnicity while Muslims aren’t” – would come as a huge surprise to the world’s Asian, black, Latino and white Jews, as well as to those who identify as “Muslim” as part of their cultural identity even though they don’t pray five times a day). As always: it’s free speech if it involves ideas I like or attacks groups I dislike, but it’s something different when I’m the one who is offended.
Think about the “defending terrorism” criminal offense for which Dieudonné has been arrested. Should it really be a criminal offense – causing someone to be arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned – to say something along these lines: western countries like France have been bringing violence for so long to Muslims in their countries that I now believe it’s justifiable to bring violence to France as a means of making them stop? If you want “terrorism defenses” like that to be criminally prosecuted (as opposed to societally shunned), how about those who justify, cheer for and glorify the invasion and destruction of Iraq, with its “Shock and Awe” slogan signifying an intent to terrorize the civilian population into submission and its monstrous tactics in Fallujah? Or how about the psychotic calls from a Fox News host, when discussing Muslims radicals, to “kill them ALL.” Why is one view permissible and the other criminally barred – other than because the force of law is being used to control political discourse and one form of terrorism (violence in the Muslim world) is done by, rather than to, the west?
For those interested, my comprehensive argument against all “hate speech” laws and other attempts to exploit the law to police political discourse is here. That essay, notably, was written to denounce a proposal by a French minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, to force Twitter to work with the French government to delete tweets which officials like this minister (and future unknown ministers) deem “hateful.” France is about as legitimate a symbol of free expression as Charlie Hebdo, which fired one of its writers in 2009 for a single supposedly anti-Semitic sentence in the midst of publishing an orgy of anti-Muslim (not just anti-Islam) content. This week’s celebration of France – and the gaggle of tyrannical leaders who joined it – had little to do with free speech and much to do with suppressing ideas they dislike while venerating ideas they prefer.
Perhaps the most intellectually corrupted figure in this regard is, unsurprisingly, France’s most celebrated (and easily the world’s most overrated) public intellectual, the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy. He demands criminal suppression of anything smacking of anti-Jewish views (he called for Dieudonné’s shows to be banned (“I don’t understand why anyone even sees the need for debate”) and supported the 2009 firing of the Charlie Hebdo writer for a speech offense against Jews), while shamelessly parading around all last week as the Churchillian champion of free expression when it comes to anti-Muslim cartoons.
But that, inevitably, is precisely the goal, and the effect, of laws that criminalize certain ideas and those who support such laws: to codify a system where the views they like are sanctified and the groups to which they belong protected. The views and groups they most dislike – and only them – are fair game for oppression and degradation.
The arrest of this French comedian so soon after the epic Paris free speech march underscores this point more powerfully than anything I could have written about the selectivity and fraud of this week’s “free speech” parade. It also shows – yet again – why those who want to criminalize the ideas they most dislike are at least as dangerous and tyrannical as the ideas they target: at least.
Photo: Chesnot/Getty Images
Correction: This post originally identified Dieudonné as Muslim. That was in error, and the article has been edited to reflect that correction.
==
Posted By Jason Ditz On January 14, 2015 @ 7:48 pm In News | 6 Comments
Paris celebrated free speech today with the return of attacked satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which quickly sold out its millions of copies as people expressed support for the expression of controversial opinions.
That would all make a much better story, however, if France didn’t use the exact same day to arrest scores of people for “hate speech,” announcing a planned crackdown on unacceptable language.
France’s Justice Ministry ordered arrests of “racists” nationwide, and by evening 54 had been detained on various speech-related offenses, including a high profile comedian arrested for “supporting terrorism.”
The timing is outright bizarre, with the “Je suis Charlie” movement celebrating freedom of speech, and the Interior Ministry petitioning the rest of the European Union to work together to “eliminate hate speech” online.
The arrests centered around people saying things, either online or in public, which police found unacceptable. One man, a 20-year-old in Orleans, was arrested for saying “long live the Kalashnikov.”
The new information has almost confirmed that Paris attack was a false flag operation carried out by the CIA, says Soraya Sepahpour Ulrich, an independent researcher and writer based in Irvine, California.
According to The Associated Press, one of the men responsible for last week’s terrorist attack that killed 12 people in the French capital claimed to have lived with the Nigerian man behind the failed al-Qaeda “underwear bomb” plot five years ago, Yemeni Journalist and researcher Mohammed al-Kibsi who met Said Kouachi, the alleged Paris attacker, said on Monday.
In a phone interview with Press TV on Tuesday, Ulrich said, “The whole Paris incident has been a puzzle for many… and one has to find connections to find what really is going on.”
“We have been told by the mainstream media, the Western media, that a Yemeni reporter has claimed that he had interviewed Kouachi who was responsible for the Paris attack, or one of those who were responsible,” she said.
“And he had ties with ‘the underwear bomber’, ‘the underwear bomber’ who was held responsible for wanting to blow up an airliner at Christmas in 2009,” Ulrich added.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was convicted of attempting to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear while on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253, en route from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan.
Underwear bomber’ was working for the CIA
“Well, it so happens that the mainstream media here is so busy turning up this information that they turned to forget the very information they gave us in the first place. For example, in 2012, we were told that ‘the underwear bomber’ was in fact working with the CIA intelligence and with the Saudis,” she pointed out.
US and Yemeni officials told The Associated Press in May 2012 that the so-called underwear bomber was in fact working under cover for Saudi intelligence and the CIA when he was given a new non-metallic type bomb aimed at getting past airport security.
Ulrich said it is important to mention that the so-called underwear bomber slipped past the security “when Israeli intelligence was in charge of the Amsterdam airport — [its] security.”
She added that intelligence officials failed to scrutinize the bomb and helped the bomber get on the plane, which “indicates to me that they all were aware of this individual’s job.”
“Six or seven months ago, the UK airport security supposedly received a warning from the US intelligence… that al-Qaeda terrorists were going to attack airports and airliners using a new generation of non-metallic bombs developed by them in Syria and Yemen,” Ulrich said.
“What is really very alarming for me is all this information, or misinformation we are getting,” she stated. “We have to understand who gain from” all this.
A spate of violent incidents, including the attack at the Paris office of controversial magazine Charlie Hebdo, left at least 17 people dead last week in the French capital.
Two days after the Charlie Hebdo attack, Said and Cherif Kouachi, suspects, were killed after being cornered at a printing workshop in the French town of Dammartin-en-Goele.
“So at the end of the day, we have to understand who is gaining by all these alleged attacks,” Ulrich emphasized. People are not being told the truth; they are “told a bunch of lies that are supposedly not connected and somehow when they do get connected we trace it back to the intelligence services, like the CIA.”
“So we have to be very alert, and do not forget what we read yesterday in order to absorb what we are reading today and connect the dots ourselves,” she warned.
“I mean many have had doubts about the veracity of the incident in Paris. Many had thought it to be a false flag operation. And now with this new information they are feeding us and tying [it] to the underwear bomber who worked for the CIA, it has virtually established the fact that it was indeed a false flag operation,” Ulrich concluded.
By Soraya Sepahpour Ulrich and Press TV
© Copyright 2015 Press TV. All rights reserved.
====
This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s Web page.
The thinly veiled hate group PEGIDA, which says it is against the “Islamization” of Gremany (by which it means it wants German to be Muslimrein or purified of Muslims), staged a demonstration of 18,000 in the eastern city of Dresden on Monday, in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks. Some of those who marched dressed up like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, but in a Muslim scarf. (PEGIDA was not able to get very many people out except in Dresden, suggesting that they are primarily a regional movement resentful of the imperfect integration of the formerly Communist east into the new Germany.) About 4,000 in Dresden joined a counter-demonstration.
Monday’s was the second big demonstration in Dresden sponsored by PEGIDA. DeutscheWelle reported on the unease of Dresden Muslims (2.5% of the city) in the aftermath of the first demo:
DW: “Dresden’s Muslims on PEGIDA”
The right wing Alternative for Germany party has aligned itself with the PEGIDA movement. On Monday, in response to PEGIDA, Merkel affirmed that “Islam belongs to Germany.”
Some 57% of Germans say in polls that they feel threatened by Islam. A country of 80 million, Germany has 4 million Muslims, 2/3s of them Turks. About half of these Turks of Muslim heritage, however, hail from the Alevi Shiite minority in Turkey, and many Alevi families became secular leftists in the 1960s and 1970s. So most Turkish Muslims are not interested in Sunni fundamentalism. Moreover, only about half of resident Muslims are citizens, so they are not in a position to ‘Islamize’ anything, even if they wanted to– which most do not. In polling, Germans give unrealistically high estimates of how many Muslims they think there are in the country.
Germans have very small family size and the country is projected to fall from 80 million to only 60 million by 2050, thus falling behind France, which is growing through immigration. Merkel’s government appears to favor emulating the French policy, encouraging immigration, to avoid Germany losing its economic and demographic leadership role in Europe.
Reuters said, “In 2013, Germany saw net immigration of 437,000 people, its highest level in 20 years. It also welcomed close to 200,000 asylum seekers last year, many from war-torn Syria.”
But growing through immigration involves becoming a truly multicultural society. And Merkel had earlier opposed multiculturalism, declaring that experiment dead. She now, however, seems to be changing her mind about that, impelled by a desire to distinguish her center-right Christian Democrats from anti-immigrant and intolerant political forces much to her right.
On Tuesday, the cosmopolitan city of Berlin, the country’s capital, replied with a massive demonstration in favor of tolerance. Similar pro-tolerance rallies throughout the country were joined by 100,000 persons.
German Muslims widely joined these demonstrations, denouncing the extremists in Paris.
Remarkably, Chancellor Angela Merkel joined the Berlin rally. Not only that, but she had unambiguously affirmed that Islam belongs to Germany.
RP Online explains that in October of 2010, Christian Democrat president Christian Wulff had said, “Christianity belongs without any doubt to Germany. Judaism belongs without any doubt to Germany. But Islam in the meantime also belongs to Germany.
Wulff’s successor as president, Joachim Gauck, in 2012 walked back Wulff’s pronouncement. He said, “It isn’t Islam that belongs to Germany or forms part of our Western culture; but the Muslims, who live here, do belong to it.”
Gauck thus seemed to want to draw a distinction between Islam, which he saw as alien to German traditions, and German Muslim citizens, who, he admitted, formed part of the German nation. This sounds to me like the people who say it is all right to be gay as long as one doesn’t practice it. Gayness would be rejected, but gays accepted as people. That’s the kind of distinction Gauck seemed to be drawing between the alienness of Islam and the belongingness of German Muslims.
Merkel seems to have been closer to Wulff’s view than to Gauck’s. She said in Sept. 2012, “to say that Islam does not belong to Germany– I find it surely false.” So, she was asked, “if Islam forms part of us.” She replied, “I find, yes.” On Monday, she made it clear that she did agree with Wulff.
Wolfgang Bosch, a Rhein-Bergisch Christian Democrat MP, objected. “Which Islam is meant? Does that apply to Islamist and Salafi movements?” He added, “Also the Sharia does not at all belong to Germany.
At the Berlin rally, Merkel spoke for tolerance:
“To exclude groups of people because of their faith, this isn’t worthy of the free state in which we live. It isn’t compatible with our essential values. And its humanly reprehensible. Xenophobia, racism, extremism have no place here.”
President Joachim Gauck added, “Germany has become more diverse through immigration – religiously, culturally and mentally. This diversity has made our country successful, interesting and likeable.” Gauck is a former East German dissident and Protestant pastor.
One leader of AFG, Bernd Lucke, insisted, “If we’re honest about it, Islam is foreign to Germany,” according to Reuters.
Just as a historical note, the Habsburg Empire that ruled Spain, Portugal and parts of northern and central Europe, including some of what is now Germany in the 1500s and 1600s, ruled over many Muslim subjects, including in Morocco and West Africa. The unified German state of the late 19th and early 20th century ruled over Muslims in what is now Tanzania. Goethe paid homage to the Iranian Persian poet, Hafez, in his “East-West Divan.” Germany has produced some of the greatest modern scholars of Islam. The heritage of Islam in historical Germany is not inconsiderable.
===
By Amy Goodman
The massacre at Charlie Hebdo, and the subsequent killing of a policewoman and mass murder at the Hyper Cachet kosher market, shocked the world. Young fanatics with automatic weapons unleashed a torrent of violence and death, fueled by zealous intolerance. At the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, the satiric newsmagazine, 12 were murdered and 11 wounded. The victims were guilty of nothing more than expressing ideas. Certainly, true to the point of satire, many of the ideas were very offensive to many people—in this case, caricatures of the prophet Muhammad.
In the wake of the violence, people from around the world expressed solidarity with the victims, and with the people of France. Among the world leaders who flocked to Paris to condemn the attacks were some of the worst perpetrators of repression of journalists, all too often Arab and Muslim journalists.
Reporters Without Borders, also known as Reporters Sans Frontieres, or RSF, is based in Paris, not far from the offices of Charlie Hebdo. Word of the attack quickly made it to the staff there. Lucie Morillon, RSF program director, was one of the first people on the scene after the massacre at Charlie Hebdo. I spoke to her in New York City, just a day after she attended last Sunday’s solidarity march in Paris, which drew more than 1 million people. She recounted the events of Wednesday, Jan. 7:
“We were having a meeting ... a colleague came in, he said: ‘There’s something huge. It looks like there had been shots fired at Charlie Hebdo, and there might be people dead.’ It was just complete shock, completely surreal.”
They raced to the scene of the massacre. Morillon went on: “There were still bullets on the ground. It was just very chaotic. We were just wondering who’s dead, what happened. And a man left the office, and he just went into President [Francois] Hollande’s arms. He burst into tears, ‘Charb est mort,’ ‘Charb is dead.’” He was speaking of Stephane Charbonnier, Charlie Hebdo’s editor.
On Sunday, the day of marches across France, which drew close to 4 million people, the group stated in a press release, “Reporters Without Borders welcomes the participation of many foreign leaders in today’s march in Paris in homage to the victims of last week’s terror attacks and in defence of the French republic’s values, but is outraged by the presence of officials from countries that restrict freedom of information.” The group stated it was “appalled by the presence of leaders from countries where journalists and bloggers are systematically persecuted such as Egypt, Russia, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.” Photos and video of the world leaders standing, locked arm in arm, leading the massive march, raced around the planet. Much ado was made in the United States of the absence of any high-level Obama administration official. Even though Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris that day, inexplicably, he didn’t show up for the march. Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry was there, whose government has imprisoned many journalists, most notably three from Al-Jazeera who have been held for more than a year now: Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed.
The Saudi Arabian ambassador to France also showed up at the march. Two days earlier, his government flogged the blogger Raif Badawi. He was sentenced to 1,000 lashes, but the Saudi monarchy is administering 50 lashes per week. Delphine Hagland, the U.S. director of Reporters Without Borders, explained, “They decided to divide the 1,000 lashes in different sessions because they were afraid that he would be killed.”
It has now been reported that the world leaders, locked arm in arm, were not in the march at all, but were gathered for a photo opportunity on a closed street, away from the protest, under guard. Quite simply, it was the people who led that day, not the leaders. “Je Suis Charlie,” or “I am Charlie,” was the battle cry of many. Others tweeted or held signs that read, “I am not Charlie,” condemning the violence without endorsing Charlie Hebdo’s caricatures. A Muslim woman held a sign, “Je Suis Juif,” “I am Jewish,” in solidarity with the Jewish victims. Others held signs that read “Je Suis Ahmed” for Ahmed Merabet, the French Muslim police officer who was killed outside the magazine offices.
Close to 4 million people took to the streets of France last Sunday, demanding a more peaceful society, one in which press freedom and religious tolerance overwhelm violence and hatred.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,200 stations in North America. She is the co-author of “The Silenced Majority,” a New York Times best-seller.
====
A magazine that most people outside France had never heard of before Jan. 7 now has legions of followers and fans around the world. The dominant narrative that has emerged from the horrific massacre of 10 staffers of Charlie Hebdo (plus police officers and hostages) is that the very foundation of freedom itself was attacked last week in Paris, and that the best way to fight Islamic fundamentalism is to uphold the ethos of Charlie Hebdo’s irreverence and satire. After all, in seeing their own values embodied in Charlie Hebdo, holders of “Je Suis Charlie” signs seem to be positioning themselves on the “right” side of freedom and democracy.
It is tempting to join in and poke fun at religion as an expression of freedom and free speech. I am an atheist. I don’t think highly of any religious views, myths or traditions. But the response to the Charlie Hebdo massacre has revealed an overwhelming set of double standards. Scratching even a tiny bit of the surface of one hypocritical notion after another leads to uncomfortable and undeniable conclusions: that it is OK to insult one and only one religion and its 1.6 billion adherents, and that we must uphold at all costs the freedom of anti-Muslim speech alone.
Within hours of the attacks, French President Francois Hollande made a public address, calling the massacre “an attack on freedom.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel pronounced it “an attack on freedom of speech and the press, core elements of our free democratic culture.”
But less than a year ago, a French court upheld a ban on the niqab, the full face covering worn by some Muslim women. There are millions of Muslims in Europe, with France being home to the largest group of 5 million. The ban, which has exceptions carved out for non-Muslims (such as wearers of motorcycle helmets), has inspired similar bans in other European countries and cities. Although some people protested against this attack on freedom of religion and dress, there were no major marches or solemn public addresses by heads of state denouncing the violation of people’s liberties. Instead the ban was seen as upholding French values.
The niqab ban is only one example of the myriad ways in which the freedoms of French Muslims are threatened. Muslims are disproportionately represented in French prisons and there is persistent poverty, unemployment and discrimination. Although Charlie Hebdo has been upheld as a bastion of free speech for skewering all things sacred, it too has double standards. In 2009, the magazine fired then-80-year-old cartoonist Maurice Sinet who later faced charges of “inciting racial hatred” and promoting anti-Semitism by insinuating that someone’s conversion to Judaism would contribute to his success in life. Strangely, the magazine did not apply similar standards to its depiction of the prophet Muhammad in degrading positions. This spread in a 2012 issue shows the prophet naked. Even French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius expressed his disapproval of the images, saying, “I am against provocations.”
French politicians, who in the wake of the massacre have celebrated Charlie Hebdo’s right to lampoon everything, have often drawn the line, like the magazine, at anti-Semitism. In fact, France and other European nations have strict laws curbing hate speech of the anti-Semitic variety. Black French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, who makes light of the Holocaust, was banned from performing his offensive brand of comedy just a year ago because “a ‘serious risk’ of ‘grave attacks’ to fundamental French values could not be dismissed.” In recent days, he, along with 54 others, have been arrested for hate speech in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack. So, while anti-Jewish racism is antithetical to French values, anti-Muslim racism seems perfectly in line with said values.
When a Muslim group in France took Charlie Hebdo to court a year ago—over a headline that read “The Koran is shit—it doesn’t stop bullets”—in a suit filed in the once German town of Alsace-Moselle, the magazine’s editor relied on that particular town’s peculiar laws to protect him. Alsace-Moselle retains a historical set of laws banning religious blasphemy against Christianity and Judaism, but not Islam. Stephane Charbonnier, Charlie Hebdo’s editorial director who was killed in the Jan. 7 shooting, was confident of the suit’s outcome, saying at the time, “We know in advance that the trial will not go through because Islam is not in the code.”
==
Obama and Cameron held two days of White House talks amid increasing concern in Europe about the threat posed by extremists after 17 people were killed in Paris attacks and Belgian authorities engaged in a firefight with terror suspects.
"We face a poisonous and fanatical ideology that wants to pervert one of the world's major religions, Islam, and create conflict, terror and death. With our allies, we will confront it wherever it appears," Cameron told a joint White House news conference with Obama after their talks.
Obama said he and Cameron accepted that intelligence and military force alone would not solve the problem, and they would work together on "strategies to counter violent extremism that radicalizes recruits and mobilizes people, especially young people, to engage in terrorism."
The extremists' ability to communicate online and spread recruitment propaganda on the Internet have presented a challenge to authorities.
Obama and Cameron expressed concerns about new encryption products that could prevent governments from tracking extremists poised to attack.
Technology companies became alarmed with surveillance techniques after former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden leaked classified details about how the government harvests data from companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AT&T and Verizon.
"We're not asking for back doors" to access electronic communications, Cameron said. "We believe in very clear front doors through legal processes that should help to keep our country safe."
Obama said debate from civil libertarians and privacy groups has been "useful" in the debate, but said legal safeguards are in place to prevent government from "Big Brother" scenarios.
Obama said the U.S. government has been working with technology companies to deal with privacy concerns without preventing investigations.
"Social media and the Internet is the primary way in which these terrorist organizations are communicating," Obama said.
"We're still going to have to find ways to make sure that if an Al Qaeda affiliate is operating in Great Britain or in the United States, that we can try to prevent real tragedy," he said.
Obama and Cameron also agreed to conduct cybersecurity war games and establish a joint "cyber cell" to prepare for and share intelligence on malicious hacking, weeks after Sony Entertainment was hacked in an incident the FBI has blamed on North Korea.
(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Alden Bentley)
That would all make a much better story, however, if France didn’t use the exact same day to arrest scores of people for “hate speech,” announcing a planned crackdown on unacceptable language.
France’s Justice Ministry ordered arrests of “racists” nationwide, and by evening 54 had been detained on various speech-related offenses, including a high profile comedian arrested for “supporting terrorism.”
The timing is outright bizarre, with the “Je suis Charlie” movement celebrating freedom of speech, and the Interior Ministry petitioning the rest of the European Union to work together to “eliminate hate speech” online.
The arrests centered around people saying things, either online or in public, which police found unacceptable. One man, a 20-year-old in Orleans, was arrested for saying “long live the Kalashnikov.”
Was The CIA Behind Paris Attack?
Post Categories: Canada
According to The Associated Press, one of the men responsible for last week’s terrorist attack that killed 12 people in the French capital claimed to have lived with the Nigerian man behind the failed al-Qaeda “underwear bomb” plot five years ago, Yemeni Journalist and researcher Mohammed al-Kibsi who met Said Kouachi, the alleged Paris attacker, said on Monday.
In a phone interview with Press TV on Tuesday, Ulrich said, “The whole Paris incident has been a puzzle for many… and one has to find connections to find what really is going on.”
“We have been told by the mainstream media, the Western media, that a Yemeni reporter has claimed that he had interviewed Kouachi who was responsible for the Paris attack, or one of those who were responsible,” she said.
“And he had ties with ‘the underwear bomber’, ‘the underwear bomber’ who was held responsible for wanting to blow up an airliner at Christmas in 2009,” Ulrich added.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was convicted of attempting to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear while on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253, en route from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan.
Underwear bomber’ was working for the CIA
“Well, it so happens that the mainstream media here is so busy turning up this information that they turned to forget the very information they gave us in the first place. For example, in 2012, we were told that ‘the underwear bomber’ was in fact working with the CIA intelligence and with the Saudis,” she pointed out.
US and Yemeni officials told The Associated Press in May 2012 that the so-called underwear bomber was in fact working under cover for Saudi intelligence and the CIA when he was given a new non-metallic type bomb aimed at getting past airport security.
Ulrich said it is important to mention that the so-called underwear bomber slipped past the security “when Israeli intelligence was in charge of the Amsterdam airport — [its] security.”
She added that intelligence officials failed to scrutinize the bomb and helped the bomber get on the plane, which “indicates to me that they all were aware of this individual’s job.”
“Six or seven months ago, the UK airport security supposedly received a warning from the US intelligence… that al-Qaeda terrorists were going to attack airports and airliners using a new generation of non-metallic bombs developed by them in Syria and Yemen,” Ulrich said.
“What is really very alarming for me is all this information, or misinformation we are getting,” she stated. “We have to understand who gain from” all this.
A spate of violent incidents, including the attack at the Paris office of controversial magazine Charlie Hebdo, left at least 17 people dead last week in the French capital.
Two days after the Charlie Hebdo attack, Said and Cherif Kouachi, suspects, were killed after being cornered at a printing workshop in the French town of Dammartin-en-Goele.
“So at the end of the day, we have to understand who is gaining by all these alleged attacks,” Ulrich emphasized. People are not being told the truth; they are “told a bunch of lies that are supposedly not connected and somehow when they do get connected we trace it back to the intelligence services, like the CIA.”
“So we have to be very alert, and do not forget what we read yesterday in order to absorb what we are reading today and connect the dots ourselves,” she warned.
“I mean many have had doubts about the veracity of the incident in Paris. Many had thought it to be a false flag operation. And now with this new information they are feeding us and tying [it] to the underwear bomber who worked for the CIA, it has virtually established the fact that it was indeed a false flag operation,” Ulrich concluded.
By Soraya Sepahpour Ulrich and Press TV
© Copyright 2015 Press TV. All rights reserved.
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In Call for Tolerance, Merkel Says Islam ‘Belongs to Germany’
Posted on Jan 14, 2015
By Juan ColeThis post originally ran on Juan Cole’s Web page.
The thinly veiled hate group PEGIDA, which says it is against the “Islamization” of Gremany (by which it means it wants German to be Muslimrein or purified of Muslims), staged a demonstration of 18,000 in the eastern city of Dresden on Monday, in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks. Some of those who marched dressed up like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, but in a Muslim scarf. (PEGIDA was not able to get very many people out except in Dresden, suggesting that they are primarily a regional movement resentful of the imperfect integration of the formerly Communist east into the new Germany.) About 4,000 in Dresden joined a counter-demonstration.
Monday’s was the second big demonstration in Dresden sponsored by PEGIDA. DeutscheWelle reported on the unease of Dresden Muslims (2.5% of the city) in the aftermath of the first demo:
DW: “Dresden’s Muslims on PEGIDA”
The right wing Alternative for Germany party has aligned itself with the PEGIDA movement. On Monday, in response to PEGIDA, Merkel affirmed that “Islam belongs to Germany.”
Some 57% of Germans say in polls that they feel threatened by Islam. A country of 80 million, Germany has 4 million Muslims, 2/3s of them Turks. About half of these Turks of Muslim heritage, however, hail from the Alevi Shiite minority in Turkey, and many Alevi families became secular leftists in the 1960s and 1970s. So most Turkish Muslims are not interested in Sunni fundamentalism. Moreover, only about half of resident Muslims are citizens, so they are not in a position to ‘Islamize’ anything, even if they wanted to– which most do not. In polling, Germans give unrealistically high estimates of how many Muslims they think there are in the country.
Germans have very small family size and the country is projected to fall from 80 million to only 60 million by 2050, thus falling behind France, which is growing through immigration. Merkel’s government appears to favor emulating the French policy, encouraging immigration, to avoid Germany losing its economic and demographic leadership role in Europe.
Reuters said, “In 2013, Germany saw net immigration of 437,000 people, its highest level in 20 years. It also welcomed close to 200,000 asylum seekers last year, many from war-torn Syria.”
But growing through immigration involves becoming a truly multicultural society. And Merkel had earlier opposed multiculturalism, declaring that experiment dead. She now, however, seems to be changing her mind about that, impelled by a desire to distinguish her center-right Christian Democrats from anti-immigrant and intolerant political forces much to her right.
On Tuesday, the cosmopolitan city of Berlin, the country’s capital, replied with a massive demonstration in favor of tolerance. Similar pro-tolerance rallies throughout the country were joined by 100,000 persons.
German Muslims widely joined these demonstrations, denouncing the extremists in Paris.
Remarkably, Chancellor Angela Merkel joined the Berlin rally. Not only that, but she had unambiguously affirmed that Islam belongs to Germany.
RP Online explains that in October of 2010, Christian Democrat president Christian Wulff had said, “Christianity belongs without any doubt to Germany. Judaism belongs without any doubt to Germany. But Islam in the meantime also belongs to Germany.
Wulff’s successor as president, Joachim Gauck, in 2012 walked back Wulff’s pronouncement. He said, “It isn’t Islam that belongs to Germany or forms part of our Western culture; but the Muslims, who live here, do belong to it.”
Gauck thus seemed to want to draw a distinction between Islam, which he saw as alien to German traditions, and German Muslim citizens, who, he admitted, formed part of the German nation. This sounds to me like the people who say it is all right to be gay as long as one doesn’t practice it. Gayness would be rejected, but gays accepted as people. That’s the kind of distinction Gauck seemed to be drawing between the alienness of Islam and the belongingness of German Muslims.
Merkel seems to have been closer to Wulff’s view than to Gauck’s. She said in Sept. 2012, “to say that Islam does not belong to Germany– I find it surely false.” So, she was asked, “if Islam forms part of us.” She replied, “I find, yes.” On Monday, she made it clear that she did agree with Wulff.
Wolfgang Bosch, a Rhein-Bergisch Christian Democrat MP, objected. “Which Islam is meant? Does that apply to Islamist and Salafi movements?” He added, “Also the Sharia does not at all belong to Germany.
At the Berlin rally, Merkel spoke for tolerance:
“To exclude groups of people because of their faith, this isn’t worthy of the free state in which we live. It isn’t compatible with our essential values. And its humanly reprehensible. Xenophobia, racism, extremism have no place here.”
President Joachim Gauck added, “Germany has become more diverse through immigration – religiously, culturally and mentally. This diversity has made our country successful, interesting and likeable.” Gauck is a former East German dissident and Protestant pastor.
One leader of AFG, Bernd Lucke, insisted, “If we’re honest about it, Islam is foreign to Germany,” according to Reuters.
Just as a historical note, the Habsburg Empire that ruled Spain, Portugal and parts of northern and central Europe, including some of what is now Germany in the 1500s and 1600s, ruled over many Muslim subjects, including in Morocco and West Africa. The unified German state of the late 19th and early 20th century ruled over Muslims in what is now Tanzania. Goethe paid homage to the Iranian Persian poet, Hafez, in his “East-West Divan.” Germany has produced some of the greatest modern scholars of Islam. The heritage of Islam in historical Germany is not inconsiderable.
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The Other Charlies
Posted on Jan 14, 2015
The massacre at Charlie Hebdo, and the subsequent killing of a policewoman and mass murder at the Hyper Cachet kosher market, shocked the world. Young fanatics with automatic weapons unleashed a torrent of violence and death, fueled by zealous intolerance. At the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, the satiric newsmagazine, 12 were murdered and 11 wounded. The victims were guilty of nothing more than expressing ideas. Certainly, true to the point of satire, many of the ideas were very offensive to many people—in this case, caricatures of the prophet Muhammad.
In the wake of the violence, people from around the world expressed solidarity with the victims, and with the people of France. Among the world leaders who flocked to Paris to condemn the attacks were some of the worst perpetrators of repression of journalists, all too often Arab and Muslim journalists.
Reporters Without Borders, also known as Reporters Sans Frontieres, or RSF, is based in Paris, not far from the offices of Charlie Hebdo. Word of the attack quickly made it to the staff there. Lucie Morillon, RSF program director, was one of the first people on the scene after the massacre at Charlie Hebdo. I spoke to her in New York City, just a day after she attended last Sunday’s solidarity march in Paris, which drew more than 1 million people. She recounted the events of Wednesday, Jan. 7:
“We were having a meeting ... a colleague came in, he said: ‘There’s something huge. It looks like there had been shots fired at Charlie Hebdo, and there might be people dead.’ It was just complete shock, completely surreal.”
They raced to the scene of the massacre. Morillon went on: “There were still bullets on the ground. It was just very chaotic. We were just wondering who’s dead, what happened. And a man left the office, and he just went into President [Francois] Hollande’s arms. He burst into tears, ‘Charb est mort,’ ‘Charb is dead.’” He was speaking of Stephane Charbonnier, Charlie Hebdo’s editor.
On Sunday, the day of marches across France, which drew close to 4 million people, the group stated in a press release, “Reporters Without Borders welcomes the participation of many foreign leaders in today’s march in Paris in homage to the victims of last week’s terror attacks and in defence of the French republic’s values, but is outraged by the presence of officials from countries that restrict freedom of information.” The group stated it was “appalled by the presence of leaders from countries where journalists and bloggers are systematically persecuted such as Egypt, Russia, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.” Photos and video of the world leaders standing, locked arm in arm, leading the massive march, raced around the planet. Much ado was made in the United States of the absence of any high-level Obama administration official. Even though Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris that day, inexplicably, he didn’t show up for the march. Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry was there, whose government has imprisoned many journalists, most notably three from Al-Jazeera who have been held for more than a year now: Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed.
The Saudi Arabian ambassador to France also showed up at the march. Two days earlier, his government flogged the blogger Raif Badawi. He was sentenced to 1,000 lashes, but the Saudi monarchy is administering 50 lashes per week. Delphine Hagland, the U.S. director of Reporters Without Borders, explained, “They decided to divide the 1,000 lashes in different sessions because they were afraid that he would be killed.”
It has now been reported that the world leaders, locked arm in arm, were not in the march at all, but were gathered for a photo opportunity on a closed street, away from the protest, under guard. Quite simply, it was the people who led that day, not the leaders. “Je Suis Charlie,” or “I am Charlie,” was the battle cry of many. Others tweeted or held signs that read, “I am not Charlie,” condemning the violence without endorsing Charlie Hebdo’s caricatures. A Muslim woman held a sign, “Je Suis Juif,” “I am Jewish,” in solidarity with the Jewish victims. Others held signs that read “Je Suis Ahmed” for Ahmed Merabet, the French Muslim police officer who was killed outside the magazine offices.
Close to 4 million people took to the streets of France last Sunday, demanding a more peaceful society, one in which press freedom and religious tolerance overwhelm violence and hatred.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,200 stations in North America. She is the co-author of “The Silenced Majority,” a New York Times best-seller.
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Hypocrisy Abounds: Free Speech as Cover for Islamophobia
Posted on Jan 15, 2015
By Sonali KolhatkarIt is tempting to join in and poke fun at religion as an expression of freedom and free speech. I am an atheist. I don’t think highly of any religious views, myths or traditions. But the response to the Charlie Hebdo massacre has revealed an overwhelming set of double standards. Scratching even a tiny bit of the surface of one hypocritical notion after another leads to uncomfortable and undeniable conclusions: that it is OK to insult one and only one religion and its 1.6 billion adherents, and that we must uphold at all costs the freedom of anti-Muslim speech alone.
Within hours of the attacks, French President Francois Hollande made a public address, calling the massacre “an attack on freedom.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel pronounced it “an attack on freedom of speech and the press, core elements of our free democratic culture.”
But less than a year ago, a French court upheld a ban on the niqab, the full face covering worn by some Muslim women. There are millions of Muslims in Europe, with France being home to the largest group of 5 million. The ban, which has exceptions carved out for non-Muslims (such as wearers of motorcycle helmets), has inspired similar bans in other European countries and cities. Although some people protested against this attack on freedom of religion and dress, there were no major marches or solemn public addresses by heads of state denouncing the violation of people’s liberties. Instead the ban was seen as upholding French values.
The niqab ban is only one example of the myriad ways in which the freedoms of French Muslims are threatened. Muslims are disproportionately represented in French prisons and there is persistent poverty, unemployment and discrimination. Although Charlie Hebdo has been upheld as a bastion of free speech for skewering all things sacred, it too has double standards. In 2009, the magazine fired then-80-year-old cartoonist Maurice Sinet who later faced charges of “inciting racial hatred” and promoting anti-Semitism by insinuating that someone’s conversion to Judaism would contribute to his success in life. Strangely, the magazine did not apply similar standards to its depiction of the prophet Muhammad in degrading positions. This spread in a 2012 issue shows the prophet naked. Even French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius expressed his disapproval of the images, saying, “I am against provocations.”
French politicians, who in the wake of the massacre have celebrated Charlie Hebdo’s right to lampoon everything, have often drawn the line, like the magazine, at anti-Semitism. In fact, France and other European nations have strict laws curbing hate speech of the anti-Semitic variety. Black French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, who makes light of the Holocaust, was banned from performing his offensive brand of comedy just a year ago because “a ‘serious risk’ of ‘grave attacks’ to fundamental French values could not be dismissed.” In recent days, he, along with 54 others, have been arrested for hate speech in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack. So, while anti-Jewish racism is antithetical to French values, anti-Muslim racism seems perfectly in line with said values.
When a Muslim group in France took Charlie Hebdo to court a year ago—over a headline that read “The Koran is shit—it doesn’t stop bullets”—in a suit filed in the once German town of Alsace-Moselle, the magazine’s editor relied on that particular town’s peculiar laws to protect him. Alsace-Moselle retains a historical set of laws banning religious blasphemy against Christianity and Judaism, but not Islam. Stephane Charbonnier, Charlie Hebdo’s editorial director who was killed in the Jan. 7 shooting, was confident of the suit’s outcome, saying at the time, “We know in advance that the trial will not go through because Islam is not in the code.”
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Obama, Cameron vow to take on 'poisonous ideology' of radical Islam
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron vowed on Friday to take on "the poisonous ideology" of Islamic extremists and said intelligence agencies must be allowed to track militants online despite privacy concerns.
Obama and Cameron held two days of White House talks amid increasing concern in Europe about the threat posed by extremists after 17 people were killed in Paris attacks and Belgian authorities engaged in a firefight with terror suspects.
"We face a poisonous and fanatical ideology that wants to pervert one of the world's major religions, Islam, and create conflict, terror and death. With our allies, we will confront it wherever it appears," Cameron told a joint White House news conference with Obama after their talks.
Obama said he and Cameron accepted that intelligence and military force alone would not solve the problem, and they would work together on "strategies to counter violent extremism that radicalizes recruits and mobilizes people, especially young people, to engage in terrorism."
The extremists' ability to communicate online and spread recruitment propaganda on the Internet have presented a challenge to authorities.
Obama and Cameron expressed concerns about new encryption products that could prevent governments from tracking extremists poised to attack.
Technology companies became alarmed with surveillance techniques after former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden leaked classified details about how the government harvests data from companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AT&T and Verizon.
"We're not asking for back doors" to access electronic communications, Cameron said. "We believe in very clear front doors through legal processes that should help to keep our country safe."
Obama said debate from civil libertarians and privacy groups has been "useful" in the debate, but said legal safeguards are in place to prevent government from "Big Brother" scenarios.
Obama said the U.S. government has been working with technology companies to deal with privacy concerns without preventing investigations.
"Social media and the Internet is the primary way in which these terrorist organizations are communicating," Obama said.
"We're still going to have to find ways to make sure that if an Al Qaeda affiliate is operating in Great Britain or in the United States, that we can try to prevent real tragedy," he said.
Obama and Cameron also agreed to conduct cybersecurity war games and establish a joint "cyber cell" to prepare for and share intelligence on malicious hacking, weeks after Sony Entertainment was hacked in an incident the FBI has blamed on North Korea.
(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Alden Bentley)
On Charlie Hebdo Pope Francis is using the wife-beater’s defence
Yes, free speech has always had its limits – but verbal provocation is never an excuse for violence
On the day another cartoonist victim was buried at Père Lachaise cemetery, the pope came as near as dammit to suggesting that Charlie Hebdo had it coming. “One cannot provoke; one cannot insult other people’s faith; one cannot make fun of faith,” he said.
Oh yes, you can. You may not choose to. It may not be wise or polite or kind – but you can. And to show you can, without being gunned down, Charlie Hebdo has just gone on sale in the UK, in bolder outlets, proudly defiant with an image of Muhammad on the cover – though with a tear and a kindly thought: “All is forgiven.”
The pope pointed to his aide as he said “If my good friend Dr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch. It’s normal. It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”
No, it’s not normal to punch someone who insults you; the pope’s Christ certainly didn’t think so. Verbal provocation is never an excuse for violence – that’s the wife-beater’s defence.
Is he saying we must respect any old cult: followers of Black Sabbath, Odin, Scientology, astrology? Or is it the size of a faith that earns it the right to gag mockery?
Whenever the faiths come together to protect their rights jointly, you should smell a rat. They don’t just believe very different things; their professions contradict one another. In real life, it’s Catholic against Protestant, Hindu against Muslim, except in the soup blender of Thought for the Day, where only gentle and similar voices preaching peace and understanding get a voice. Absent is the red-hot ferocity that fuels the Islamists of Isis as they slaughter Christians, or the proselytising Nichiren Bhuddists, or the extremists from Northern Ireland’s religious fringes. Religion is gentle only when it’s powerless, without secular influence.
Charlie Hebdo’s cover will no doubt offend some Muslims – and possibly provoke some. That’s the role of a satirical magazine: to stick two fingers up to propriety. It is a belch in the face of established taste and dignity. You can buy it or not, find it funny or not. Its previous circulation was small, but knowing anything can be said keeps the outer edges of free expression healthy.
The pope went on to say: “There is a limit. Every religion has its dignity … in freedom of expression there are limits.”
Yes, free speech always had limits – the old shouting fire in a theatre or inciting others to violent racial hatreds: those boundaries will be forever disputed. But there has been much ducking and diving over the last week, with a pretence those limits include a ban on offending religious sensitivity. That’s what the pope was proclaiming, demanding a special, anti-Voltairean status of protection for religious ideas – a respect never given to political or other ideas just as passionately held.
Today another 50 lashes with the cane rain down on Raif Badawi in Saudi Arabia. “Je suis Raif” is starting to trend on social media as he faces 19 more weeks of flogging for writing his secularist blog Free Saudi Liberals. Governments that flocked to march in solidarity for free speech in Paris last Saturday have done little about this atrocity – far worse when inflicted by a state than by God-delirious terrorists acting as divine executioners. If all those leaders linking arms turned their backs on any dealings with Saudi Arabia, whose Wahbabist insanity has been sent out to infect parts of the Muslim world, they would make more than a gesture for free speech.
The right to make fun of popes, imams and prophets is fading fast as self-censorship for commercial, as much as self-preserving, instincts stops the presses.
The flurry of scandal over Oxford University Press stopping its children’s writers from referring to pigs or pork for fear of risking Middle East sales – or the Harper Collins atlases for export that mysteriously omit Israel for the same reason – show how easily freedom slips away unless scurrilous outriders like Charlie Hebdo can keep mocking church and mosque.
Oh yes, you can. You may not choose to. It may not be wise or polite or kind – but you can. And to show you can, without being gunned down, Charlie Hebdo has just gone on sale in the UK, in bolder outlets, proudly defiant with an image of Muhammad on the cover – though with a tear and a kindly thought: “All is forgiven.”
The pope pointed to his aide as he said “If my good friend Dr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch. It’s normal. It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”
No, it’s not normal to punch someone who insults you; the pope’s Christ certainly didn’t think so. Verbal provocation is never an excuse for violence – that’s the wife-beater’s defence.
Is he saying we must respect any old cult: followers of Black Sabbath, Odin, Scientology, astrology? Or is it the size of a faith that earns it the right to gag mockery?
Whenever the faiths come together to protect their rights jointly, you should smell a rat. They don’t just believe very different things; their professions contradict one another. In real life, it’s Catholic against Protestant, Hindu against Muslim, except in the soup blender of Thought for the Day, where only gentle and similar voices preaching peace and understanding get a voice. Absent is the red-hot ferocity that fuels the Islamists of Isis as they slaughter Christians, or the proselytising Nichiren Bhuddists, or the extremists from Northern Ireland’s religious fringes. Religion is gentle only when it’s powerless, without secular influence.
Charlie Hebdo’s cover will no doubt offend some Muslims – and possibly provoke some. That’s the role of a satirical magazine: to stick two fingers up to propriety. It is a belch in the face of established taste and dignity. You can buy it or not, find it funny or not. Its previous circulation was small, but knowing anything can be said keeps the outer edges of free expression healthy.
The pope went on to say: “There is a limit. Every religion has its dignity … in freedom of expression there are limits.”
Yes, free speech always had limits – the old shouting fire in a theatre or inciting others to violent racial hatreds: those boundaries will be forever disputed. But there has been much ducking and diving over the last week, with a pretence those limits include a ban on offending religious sensitivity. That’s what the pope was proclaiming, demanding a special, anti-Voltairean status of protection for religious ideas – a respect never given to political or other ideas just as passionately held.
Today another 50 lashes with the cane rain down on Raif Badawi in Saudi Arabia. “Je suis Raif” is starting to trend on social media as he faces 19 more weeks of flogging for writing his secularist blog Free Saudi Liberals. Governments that flocked to march in solidarity for free speech in Paris last Saturday have done little about this atrocity – far worse when inflicted by a state than by God-delirious terrorists acting as divine executioners. If all those leaders linking arms turned their backs on any dealings with Saudi Arabia, whose Wahbabist insanity has been sent out to infect parts of the Muslim world, they would make more than a gesture for free speech.
The right to make fun of popes, imams and prophets is fading fast as self-censorship for commercial, as much as self-preserving, instincts stops the presses.
The flurry of scandal over Oxford University Press stopping its children’s writers from referring to pigs or pork for fear of risking Middle East sales – or the Harper Collins atlases for export that mysteriously omit Israel for the same reason – show how easily freedom slips away unless scurrilous outriders like Charlie Hebdo can keep mocking church and mosque.
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