December 19, 2004

More on hate speech and incitement

Posted by Chris

We all got worked up about the British governmen’t proposed law on incitement to religious hatred. But it isn’t the only thing going on in the world of free speech and censorship. Last night hundreds of Sikhs in Birmingham stormed a theatre that was staging a play depicting scened of sexual abuse inside a Sikh temple. And the United States has added Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV station to its list of terrorist organizations on the grounds that its broadcasts incite violence. Al-Manar has also been taken off the air in France. Reports of the French decision give some detail both of Al-Manar’s offensive content and of the grounds of French action:

bq.A guest on a live discussion programme said there were Zionist attempts to spread Aids and other diseases to Arabs. On December 2, the station accused Israel of “an unprecedented campaign” to stop it revealing to European viewers “the crimes against humanity perpetrated by Israel”.

The French broadcasting authority, CSA, said in a letter to al-Manar that Israel had never been held responsible for crimes against humanity by an international judicial body. Al-Manar’s words, it said, could constitute an incitement to hatred or violence on grounds of religion or nationality.

[Note: I’m leaving comments open, but discussion should focus on how these cases bear on principles governing hate speech. I’ll delete any comments which veer off into generalised comment on Israel-Palestine etc.]

Posted on December 19, 2004 09:39 AM UTC
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