October 11, 2020 By Michael Curtis
On September 2, 2020 a trial, postponed because of COVID-19, openedin Paris concerning those alleged to have been involved in the deadly attack in 2015 on Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical weekly magazine. Besides recounting the gruesome account of the details of terrorist activity, the trial implicitly invokes the conflict in France between freedom of speech and freedom of thought and religion and hate speech in the context of terrorist activity that has caused deaths of innocent people.
Freedom of conscience like freedom of speech is protected by the 1789 Declaration of Human and Civil Rights and by the Constitution. In France, as in all democratic countries, free communication of ideas and opinions is vital. However, the law also prohibits hate speech, and laws protect individuals and groups from being defamed or insulted concerning identification with ethnic, national, racial, religious, sexual, gender orientations. Inherent in the present French issue is whether blasphemy, specifically against Islam, is a crime.........To Read More....
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