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Six writers have withdrawn from the PEN American Center's annual gala in protest over the organization's decision to give its Freedom of Expression Courage Award to the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which was attacked on January 7th:
The writers who have withdrawn from the event are Peter Carey, Michael Ondaatje, Francine Prose, Teju Cole, Rachel Kushner and Taiye Selasi, The New York Times reports. [...] Kushner, in an email to The Times, said she was withdrawing from the May 5 PEN gala because she was uncomfortable with Charlie Hebdo's "cultural intolerance" and promotion of "a kind of forced secular view." Those views, The Times added, were echoed by the other writers who pulled out of the event. Carey told The Times that PEN, in its decision, was going beyond its role of protecting freedom of expression." A hideous crime was committed, but was it a freedom-of-speech issue for PEN America to be self-righteous about?" he said in an email to the newspaper. Novelist Salman Rushdie, a past president of PEN who spent years in hiding because of a fatwa over his novel The Satanic Verses, criticized the writers for pulling out, saying while Carey and Ondaatje were old friends of his, they are "horribly wrong."
Glenn Greenwald has written about the controversy over at The Intercept, which is hosting letters and comments written by Deborah Eisenberg and Teju Cole. Greenwald notes:
Though the core documents are lengthy, this argument is really worth following because it highlights how ideals of free speech, and the Charlie Hebdo attack itself, were crassly exploited by governments around the world to promote all sorts of agendas having nothing to do with free expression. Indeed, some of the most repressive regimes on the planet sent officials to participate in the Paris “Free Speech” rally, and France itself began almost immediately arresting and prosecuting people for expressing unpopular, verboten political viewpoints and then undertaking a series of official censorship acts, including the blocking of websites disliked by its government. The French government perpetrated these acts of censorship, and continues to do so, with almost no objections from those who flamboyantly paraded around as free speech fanatics during Charlie Hebdo Week.
From Deborah Eisenberg's letter to PEN's Executive Director Suzanne Nossel, March 26, 2015:
I can hardly be alone in considering Charlie Hebdo's cartoons that satirize Islam to be not merely tasteless and brainless but brainlessly reckless as well. To a Muslim population in France that is already embattled, marginalized, impoverished, and victimized, in large part a devout population that clings to its religion for support, Charlie Hebdo's cartoons of the Prophet must be seen as intended to cause further humiliation and suffering.
Was it the primary purpose of the magazine to mortify and inflame a marginalized demographic? It would seem not. And yet the staff apparently considered the context of their satire and its wide-ranging potential consequences to be insignificant, or even an inducement to redouble their efforts – as if it were of paramount importance to demonstrate the right to smoke a cigarette by dropping your lit match into a dry forest.
It is difficult and painful to support the protection of offensive expression, but it is necessary; freedom of expression must be indivisible. The point of protecting all kinds of expression is that neither you nor I get to determine what attitudes are acceptable – to ensure that expression cannot be subordinated to powerful interests. But does that mean that courage in expression is to be measured by its offensiveness?
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Tuesday April 28 2015, @10:43PM
the vast majority of the worlds muslims believe that infidels should be murdered
[Citation needed]
Go spread your hate-speech somewhere else, please.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @11:05PM
There is no hate speech there, just truths. I don't care if they hurt you, they are the truth.
Citation needed?
How about Pew research?
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/ [pewforum.org]
There is your citation. From their own mouths they think killing is called for by sharia law.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Tuesday April 28 2015, @11:16PM
Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. We conduct public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other data-driven social science research. We do not take policy positions.
Thanks. Any actual citation, or are you going to come up with Fox next?
So fuck their pedo prophet, and anything else that they care about.
If this is not hate speech? I don't know what is.
I don't care if they hurt you, they are the truth.
I don't care if you think you have a monopoly on truth, because you don't.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday April 28 2015, @11:59PM
If this is not hate speech? I don't know what is.
That particular sentence is about as much "hate speech" as saying the Christian god is a murderous thug (which he is); that is, it isn't. It's just criticizing a religion and the prophets they worship.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Wednesday April 29 2015, @01:17AM
You mistake criticism for insult.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Wednesday April 29 2015, @01:28AM
Err... the other way around, of course. It's late.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @02:06AM
He was a proper pedophile. That is not even an insult or criticism, but a fact of scripture.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday April 29 2015, @02:54AM
You're limiting the options. It could be:
1) An insult.
2) A criticism.
3) A simple statement of fact.
4) Some combination of these things.
I see no reason to limit the options to two things. Simply stating that their prophet is a pedophile is not necessarily an insult, or only an insult.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @04:26PM
Is there someone here that is Islamic and modding everything down involving the prophet? On a free speech article no less.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @02:08AM
Would you prefer to see the real deal on liveleak? How about apacheclips? We don't need words. They film it and post it for us.
Those things are nasty enough that nobody should be subjected to seeing them. If you want, you can find them yourself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @04:24PM
Wait a second. Someone asks for a link showing Islamic extremists denouncing free speech with death in their own words. I post two sources to find such, and get modded -1 offtopic.
Then what the hell was the topic? To be apologists and pretend people aren't beheaded, burned alive, stoned to death, and worse all on film with explanation by militant Muslims? Such a waste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2015, @08:53AM
Some people can't handle ugly truths and their behavior to avoid facing such ugliness can seem irrational to an observer.
Feel free to post a link to the affected comment in question next time so modders with points can look it over for themselves - the threads here are getting quite tangled.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @01:47AM
> There is your citation. From their own mouths they think killing is called for by sharia law.
No, from their own mouths they think killing traitors is called for by sharia law.
Want to bet most Americans think the same thing about traitors too?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2015, @08:56AM
Your comparison is misleading.
An apostate from Islam is the equivalent of an American expatriate. I'd win a bet that most Americans don't want to see American expatriates killed.