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People attend a demonstration in solidarity with those killed in an attack at the Paris offices of weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, at the French Consulate in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, Jan 7, 2015. (Photo: AP/Manu Fernandez)
Where Were the Post-Hebdo Free Speech Crusaders as France Spent the Last Year Crushing Free Speech?
It's been almost one year since millions of people - led by the world's most repressive tyrants - marched in Paris ostensibly in favor of free speech.
Jan 08, 2016
It's been almost one year since millions of people - led by the world's most repressive tyrants - marched in Paris ostensibly in favor of free speech. Since then, the French government - which led the way trumpeting the vital importance of free speech in the wake of the Charlie Hedbo killings - has repeatedly prosecuted people for the political views they expressed, and otherwise exploited terrorism fears to crush civil liberties generally. They have done so with barely a peep of protest from most of those throughout the west who waved free speech flags in support of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists.
That's because, as I argued at the time, many of these newfound free speech crusaders exploiting the Hedbo killings were not authentic, consistent believers in free speech. Instead, they invoke that principle only in the easiest and most self-serving instances: namely, defense of the ideas they support. But when people are punished for expressing ideas they hate, they are silent or supportive of that suppression: the very opposite of genuine free speech advocacy.
Days after the Paris march, the French government arrested the comedian Dieudonne M'bala M'bala "for being an 'apologist for terrorism' after suggesting on Facebook that he sympathized with one of the Paris gunmen." Two months later, he was convicted, receiving a suspended two-month jail sentence. In November, on separate charges, he was convicted by a Belgian court "for racist and anti-Semitic comments he made during a show in Belgium" and was given a two month prison term. There were no #JeSuisDieudonne hashtags trending, and it's almost impossible to find the loudest post-Hedbo Free Speech crusaders denouncing the French and Belgian governments for this attack on free expression.
In the weeks after the Free Speech march, dozens of people in France "were arrested for hate speech or other acts insulting religious faiths, or for cheering the men who carried out the attacks." The government "ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and glorifying terrorism." There were no marches in defense of their free speech rights.
Read the full article at The Intercept.
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Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, constitutional lawyer, commentator, author of three New York Times best-selling books on politics and law, and a former staff writer and editor at First Look media. His fifth and latest book is, "No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State," about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world. Glenn's column was featured at Guardian US and Salon. His previous books include: "With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful," "Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics," and "A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency." He is the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism, a George Polk Award, and was on The Guardian team that won the Pulitzer Prize for public interest journalism in 2014.
It's been almost one year since millions of people - led by the world's most repressive tyrants - marched in Paris ostensibly in favor of free speech. Since then, the French government - which led the way trumpeting the vital importance of free speech in the wake of the Charlie Hedbo killings - has repeatedly prosecuted people for the political views they expressed, and otherwise exploited terrorism fears to crush civil liberties generally. They have done so with barely a peep of protest from most of those throughout the west who waved free speech flags in support of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists.
That's because, as I argued at the time, many of these newfound free speech crusaders exploiting the Hedbo killings were not authentic, consistent believers in free speech. Instead, they invoke that principle only in the easiest and most self-serving instances: namely, defense of the ideas they support. But when people are punished for expressing ideas they hate, they are silent or supportive of that suppression: the very opposite of genuine free speech advocacy.
Days after the Paris march, the French government arrested the comedian Dieudonne M'bala M'bala "for being an 'apologist for terrorism' after suggesting on Facebook that he sympathized with one of the Paris gunmen." Two months later, he was convicted, receiving a suspended two-month jail sentence. In November, on separate charges, he was convicted by a Belgian court "for racist and anti-Semitic comments he made during a show in Belgium" and was given a two month prison term. There were no #JeSuisDieudonne hashtags trending, and it's almost impossible to find the loudest post-Hedbo Free Speech crusaders denouncing the French and Belgian governments for this attack on free expression.
In the weeks after the Free Speech march, dozens of people in France "were arrested for hate speech or other acts insulting religious faiths, or for cheering the men who carried out the attacks." The government "ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and glorifying terrorism." There were no marches in defense of their free speech rights.
Read the full article at The Intercept.
Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, constitutional lawyer, commentator, author of three New York Times best-selling books on politics and law, and a former staff writer and editor at First Look media. His fifth and latest book is, "No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State," about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world. Glenn's column was featured at Guardian US and Salon. His previous books include: "With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful," "Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics," and "A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency." He is the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism, a George Polk Award, and was on The Guardian team that won the Pulitzer Prize for public interest journalism in 2014.
It's been almost one year since millions of people - led by the world's most repressive tyrants - marched in Paris ostensibly in favor of free speech. Since then, the French government - which led the way trumpeting the vital importance of free speech in the wake of the Charlie Hedbo killings - has repeatedly prosecuted people for the political views they expressed, and otherwise exploited terrorism fears to crush civil liberties generally. They have done so with barely a peep of protest from most of those throughout the west who waved free speech flags in support of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists.
That's because, as I argued at the time, many of these newfound free speech crusaders exploiting the Hedbo killings were not authentic, consistent believers in free speech. Instead, they invoke that principle only in the easiest and most self-serving instances: namely, defense of the ideas they support. But when people are punished for expressing ideas they hate, they are silent or supportive of that suppression: the very opposite of genuine free speech advocacy.
Days after the Paris march, the French government arrested the comedian Dieudonne M'bala M'bala "for being an 'apologist for terrorism' after suggesting on Facebook that he sympathized with one of the Paris gunmen." Two months later, he was convicted, receiving a suspended two-month jail sentence. In November, on separate charges, he was convicted by a Belgian court "for racist and anti-Semitic comments he made during a show in Belgium" and was given a two month prison term. There were no #JeSuisDieudonne hashtags trending, and it's almost impossible to find the loudest post-Hedbo Free Speech crusaders denouncing the French and Belgian governments for this attack on free expression.
In the weeks after the Free Speech march, dozens of people in France "were arrested for hate speech or other acts insulting religious faiths, or for cheering the men who carried out the attacks." The government "ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and glorifying terrorism." There were no marches in defense of their free speech rights.
Read the full article at The Intercept.
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