by Yves Mamou

  • This is the moment where hate speech laws become a greater threat to democracy and freedom of speech than hate speech itself.

 

In France, Muslim terrorists are never Muslim terrorists, but “lunatics,” “maniacs” and “youths”.

 

To attack freedom of the press and freedom of speech is not anti-hate speech; it is submission.

 

By following these recommendations, the British government would place Muslim organizations in a kind of monopoly position: they would become the only source of information about themselves. It is the perfect totalitarian information order.

 

Created to guard against the kind of xenophobic and anti-Semitic propaganda that gave rise to the Holocaust, national hate speech laws have increasingly been invoked to criminalize speech that is merely deemed insulting to one’s race, ethnicity, religion, or nationality.

 

It is disturbing to wonder how long the EU will strongly engage its experts and influence to cut through existing legal obstacles, in a quest to criminalize any type of criticism of Islam, and to submit to the values of jihad.

According the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) — part of the Council of Europe — the British press is to blame for increasing hate speech and racist violence. On October 4, 2016, the ECRI released a report dedicated only to Britain. The report said:

some traditional media, particularly tabloids… are responsible for most of the offensive, discriminatory and provocative terminology. The Sun, for instance, published an article in April 2015 entitled “Rescue boats? I’d use gunships to stop migrants”, in which the columnist likened migrants to “cockroaches”…

The Sun newspaper has also published inflammatory anti-Muslim headlines, such as its front page of 23 November 2015 which read “1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ sympathy for jihadis”, along with a picture of a masked terrorist wielding a knife…

The ECRI report establishes a direct causal link between some tough headlines in British tabloids and the security of the Muslims in the UK. In other words, the British press is allegedly inciting readers to commit “Islamophobic” acts against Muslims.

ECRI considers that, in light of the fact that Muslims are increasingly under the spotlight as a result of recent ISIS-related terrorist acts around the world, fueling prejudice against Muslims shows a reckless disregard, not only for the dignity of the great majority of Muslims in the United Kingdom, but also for their safety.

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