Christian Science Monitor
Oct 2 2010
Free speech: What if Terry Jones went to Sweden?
A look at the global state of free speech.
By Mike Sacks, Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor / October 2, 2010
Washington
In America, we can paint a Hitler mustache on the president’s likeness
without fear of the government’s wrath.
But in Jordan, a poem critical of the king can get a writer jailed.
Hatim al-Shuli, a university student, was arrested in late July 2010
for penning a poem insulting the king and causing internal strife,
actions proscribed under Jordan’s penal code. Mr. Shuli denies writing
the poem, but remains in detention awaiting trial.
“[A]rrests for things like writing poems unfortunately are regular
occurrences in Jordan,” reports Human Rights Watch, a New York-based
advocacy organization.
Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states
that “[e]veryone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.”
Today, decades after the UN’s 1948 adoption of the declaration,
Article 19 continues to be an ideal actively pursued in some countries
and aggressively denied in others.
For example, in Turkey, a constitutional republic, expression
considered insulting to the nation itself is a criminal offense under
a 2005 penal code. And writers and journalists have been prosecuted
for recognizing the Armenian genocide of 1915-17 – an event the
Turkish government officially denies.
Many European countries, on the other hand, have criminalized the
denial of crimes against humanity. This summer, Hungary became the
latest to do so, passing a law imposing three years’ imprisonment for
those who deny Nazi and Communist genocides.
In addition, much of Europe has also enacted hate speech laws that
allow for prosecution of expression where the United States does not.
Had Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in
Gainesville, Fla., taken his “International Burn a Koran Day” overseas
and arrived in Stockholm wearing one of the “Islam Is of the Devil”
T-shirts that his church sells, he could have been charged under
Sweden’s prohibition on expressing disrespect for a group based on
their faith.
In the Netherlands, ultranationalist politician Geert Wilders is
currently on trial for illegally insulting Muslims and inciting hatred
against Islamic immigrants. As grounds for the prosecution, the Dutch
government has cited, among other statements, Mr. Wilders’s comparing
Islam to Nazism and producing a film that included a Danish
newspaper’s inflammatory cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in the
opening and closing frames.
While the First Amendment protects such expression in the US,
Americans may still find themselves to be targets of violence for
their speech. Molly Norris, a cartoonist for the Seattle Weekly, has
taken the FBI’s advice to change her name and move after her
“Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” cartoon last spring landed her on an
Islamic cleric’s hit list.
Indeed, as Middle Eastern and European governments create free speech
loopholes – for better or worse – justified by national security, or
historical or civil rights concerns, some governments constitutionally
committed to free speech have become too weak to protect their
citizens from violent nonstate forces hostile to dissent.
Two young journalists were gunned down Sept. 16 in a shopping mall
parking lot in Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican city on the US border. There,
powerful drug cartels at war with one another and the state have
sought to co-opt the press and intimidate those who dare exercise
their free speech rights to challenge the cartels’ authority.
“Unfortunately,” says Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee
to Protect Journalists, such shootings have become “typical” in
Mexico. This year, 11 journalists have been murdered there.
Accordingly, says Mr. Simon, “stories of huge importance as well as
bread-and-butter crime reporting are simply not getting covered
because it can get you killed.”
The recent shootings prompted El Diario, a local newspaper, to run a
lengthy editorial repeatedly asking, “What do they want from us?”
Meanwhile, Iceland is erecting a legal framework to protect from
prosecution those who seek to expose governmental and corporate
whistle-blowers.
Already one of the countries most protective of free expression,
Iceland wants to be the most protective. In June, its Parliament
passed the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI), a proposal that
promises to turn the small North Atlantic island into a “transparency
haven” for whistle-blowers, journalists, and concerned citizens.
The creators of the IMMI believe that in addition to inspiring other
countries to follow suit, the initiative will also encourage media
organizations and human rights activists to use Iceland as the
operational hub for their Internet-based communications.
The IMMI includes an “ultramodern” Freedom of Information Act inspired
by the laws of Estonia and Britain; whistle-blower, libel tourism, and
legal process protections inspired by US federal and state laws; and
source protection laws inspired by those in Belgium.
These measures may not save the Russian reporter from assassination,
the Iranian protester from torture, or the Chinese blogger from
imprisonment. However, the IMMI does aim to provide cutting-edge
protections for “the wide range of media and human rights
organizations that routinely face unjust sanction,” notes the IMMI
website.
From: A. Papazian
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/1002/Free-speech-What-if-Terry-Jones-went-to-Sweden