scholarly journals Freedom of Expression, Secularism and Defamation of Religion: The Case of Charlie Hebdo

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 276
Author(s):  
Peonidis
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Terrorist Attack ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Basic Rights ◽  
Legal Sanctions ◽  
Religious Criticism ◽  
Charlie Hebdo

I argue that under normal circumstances a state that is liberal and secular should not use its legal apparatus to suppress the publication of cartoons like those that triggered the deadly terrorist attack on the premises of Charlie Hebdo in 2015, if it is determined to abide by its core values. These values, which include religious neutrality, religious freedom, and unhindered freedom of criticism, imply that individual citizens are prima facie legally free to express their disapproval of particular religions or religious faith in general, through any non-violent means they consider appropriate, including parody and ridicule. This idea is open to various objections. Those focusing on the protection of religion as such can be easily dismissed, but the charge that defamation of religion causes offence to believers has to be taken seriously. Nevertheless, I defend the view that we need something stronger than taking offense to justifiably ban harsh religious criticism. In particular, I argue that, if the above sort of criticism prevents its recipients from exercising their basic rights or it incites third parties to engage in criminal activities against the above individuals, it should be subject to legal sanctions. However, this is not the case with the cartoons that appeared in Charlie Hebdo, since, as far as I can tell, no basic rights of French Muslims were violated, and no violent actions were committed against them as a result of their publication.

scholarly journals Purism

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 160-178
Author(s):  
Primus
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Relative Power ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Absolute Power ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Ontological Proof

Abstract This article presents an ontological proof that God is impossible. I define an ‘impossibility’ as a condition which is inconceivable due to its a priori characteristics (e.g. a ‘square circle’). Accordingly, said conditions will not ever become conceivable, as they could in instances of a posteriori inconceivability (e.g. the notion that someone could touch a star without being burned). As the basis of this argument, I refer to an a priori observation (Primus, 2019) regarding our inability to imagine inconsistency (difference) within any point of space. This observation renders the notion of absolute power to be inconceivable, a priori. I briefly discuss the moral implications of religious faith in the context of Purism: a moral rationalist paradigm. I conclude that whilst belief in God can be aesthetically expressed it should not be possessed as a material purpose, due to the illogicality of the latter category of belief and/or expression. With this article I provide conceptual delineation between harmless religious belief and expression—which, I argue, should be protected from persecution, as per any other artistic expression—and religious belief and expression which is materially harmful to society. Whilst I aim to protect religious freedom of expression on one hand, I duly aim to reduce instances of material faith in God(s) on the other. Finally, I aim to bring hope in the possibility for human salvation via technology—such that they should exist indefinitely as ‘demi-gods,’ defined by conditional, relative power over their environment.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jonathan Ervine
Keyword(s):  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
French Society ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Stand Up Comedy ◽  
Career Trajectories ◽  
Charlie Hebdo

This introduction will briefly discuss the ways in which the January 2015 attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo provoked debates about humour and freedom of expression, as well as the limits of humour. It will argue that debates surrounding Charlie Hebdo are symptomatic of tensions and contradictions within French society when it comes to exploring multiculturalism and humour. It will also show that it is necessary to take a wider view that traces the evolution of debates about humour and the career trajectories of leading humourists. The last decade is a period during which stand-up comedy has grown in stature in France, and differing ways of evoking socio-political issues about French society have emerged.

Judicializing Religion

2020 ◽  
pp. 157-188
Author(s):  
Yvonne Tew
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Malaysian Politics ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Civil Courts

Religion has become one of the great fault lines of modern Malaysian politics and adjudication. This chapter focuses on the role of religion and religious freedom in the contemporary Malaysian state. It outlines the constitution-making process to locate the place of Islam and religious liberty within the Constitution’s generally secular original framework. Over the past quarter century, the politicization and judicialization of religion has led to an expansion of Islam’s role, fueling polarizing debate over the Malaysian state’s identity as secular or Islamic. Courts have contributed to elevating Islam’s position by deferring jurisdiction to the Sharia courts and expansively interpreting Islam’s constitutional position. The chapter then turns from the descriptive to the prescriptive. It discusses how courts can draw on the constitutional basic structure doctrine to entrench the judicial power of the civil courts to reclaim jurisdictional areas that engage constitutional rights which in the past they have ceded to the religious courts, such as apostasy. It also outlines how courts can use a purposive interpretive approach in line with the Constitution’s framework of protection for religious minorities and individual rights. Finally, it shows how the court can operationalize a proportionality analysis to closely scrutinize government regulations that restrict religious freedom or freedom of expression.

The Secularized State

2020 ◽  
pp. 220-236
Author(s):  
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde ◽  
Mirjam Künkler ◽  
Tine Stein
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Federal Constitutional ◽  
Freedom Of Belief ◽  
The Right

In this article Böckenförde contrasts his concept of open encompassing neutrality (found in most Scandinavian countries and in Germany) with that of distancing neutrality, as practised in France. While the latter champions negative religious freedom, open encompassing neutrality aims for a balancing of negative and positive religious freedom. Religious freedom for Böckenförde is multidimensional and includes the right to have (or not) a religious faith (freedom of belief), to affirm (or not) this faith privately and openly (freedom to profess), to exercise (or not) one’s religion publicly (freedom of worship), and to join together (or not) in religious communities (religious freedom of association). The correlate to these individual and group rights is the open and overarching principle of the state’s neutrality towards religion and other worldviews, entailing a prohibition on the state justifying law on religious grounds. Furthermore, it requires the state not to privilege religion over non-religion and one religious faith over another. Siding with the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court (at a time when he was not a sitting judge), Böckenförde underlines that even religious communities who reject the democratic state have the right to be recognized and legally protected. What matters is not whether communities accept or reject the state, but whether they obey or violate its laws. This was the court’s view on the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and it must also be applied, Böckenförde writes, to religious fundamentalists who do not accept the secular order, as long as they do not violate any laws.

scholarly journals Charlie Hebdo: Testing the Limits of Freedom of Expression

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Niaz A. Shah
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
The Public ◽  
Shared Space ◽  
The Right ◽  
Charlie Hebdo

AbstractThe right to freedom of expression is a qualified right: it allows expression that might ‘offend, shock or disturb’ but prohibits ‘insults’, ‘abusive attacks’ and ‘hate speech’. Applying the Convention test I argue that all cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, which although might offend Muslims, are an acceptable form of expression in Western democracies except cartoon number two implying the Prophet Muhammad as a ‘terrorist’ which is ‘insulting’ and ‘an abusive attack’ on the Muslim community and Islam. In the post-9/11 circumstances, it may be viewed as a vehicle for instigating hatred against the Muslim community. By critiquing the inaction of Denmark and France, I argue that failure to prosecute Jyllands-Posten and Charlie Hebdo violates Articles 9(1) of the European Convention and the Danish Criminal Code and the French Freedom of Press Act 1881. Relying on ECtHR’s jurisprudence, I argue that the values of the Convention and democracy aim to nurture a society based on tolerance, social peace, non-discrimination and broad-mindedness. The public space is a shared space and no single group – religious and non-religious – can monopolise nor intimidate it.

Religious fundamentalism: a conceptual critique

2013 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 561-579
Author(s):  
RICHARD McDONOUGH
Keyword(s):  
Religious Faith ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Religious Fundamentalism ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Extreme Form ◽  
Human Finitude

AbstractThe article argues that religious fundamentalism, understood, roughly, as the view that people must obey God's commands unconditionally, is conceptually incoherent because such religious fundamentalists inevitably must substitute human judgement for God's judgement. The article argues, first, that fundamentalism, founded upon the normal sort of indirect communications from God, is indefensible. Second, the article considers the crucial case in which God is said to communicate directly to human beings, and argues that the fundamentalist interpretation of such communications is also incoherent, and, on this basis, argues that religious fundamentalism is actually an extreme form of irreligiousness. Finally, the article considers Kierkegaard's prima facie defence of unconditional religious faith, and argues that, despite some similarity with the fundamentalists, Kierkegaard's appreciation of human finitude leads him to a profoundly anti-fundamentalist stance.

scholarly journals The Charlie Hebdo Attacks on Twitter: A Comparative Analysis of a Political Controversy in English and French

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 205630511769364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikos Smyrnaios ◽  
Pierre Ratinaud
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Terrorist Attack ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Original Method ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Large Scale Network ◽  
Scale Network ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Charlie Hebdo

In this article, we propose an original method combining large-scale network and lexicometric analysis to link identifiable communities of Twitter users with the main discursive themes they used in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, France in 2015. We used this method to compare tweets and user networks in French and in English. We observed that the majority of the users who tweeted about Charlie Hebdo were people without any particular affiliation, who were shocked by the attacks and immediately expressed themselves through emotionally charged messages. But rather quickly their proportion decreased and they participated less in politically polarizing discussions. On the other hand, we found that smaller, highly politicized, and polarized groups had similar attitudes toward the events: they were less engaged immediately after the attacks in emotional expression of sympathy and shock, but they participated vividly in the following days in polemical discussions or engaged themes. Other findings include the central position of mainstream media and the existence of groups of users that aggregated on the basis of nationality. More generally, our results show clearly that even the most dramatic events such as a terrorist attack with innocent victims do not produce homogeneous reactions online. Rather, political engagement and cultural dispositions are keys to understand different attitudes on Twitter.

scholarly journals JUDICIAL REVIEW PASAL-PASAL MAKAR KUHP: PERSPEKTIF PENAFSIRAN HUKUM DAN HAM (JUDICIAL REVIEW ON TREACHERY ARTICLES OF THE CRIMINAL CODE: THE PERSPECTIVE OF LAW INTERPRETATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS)

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-253
Author(s):  
Prianter Jaya Hairi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Legal Certainty ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Sanctions ◽  
Definition Of

In 2017, Constitutional Court has received three calls for judicial reviews regarding treachery (makar) article in the Criminal Code. These articles deemed to be contradicting with the principle of legal certainty and freedom of expression. This study analyzes the important issue that is being debate in those judicial reviews. One of those is about the argument which says that the absence of the definition of treachery in the Criminal Code has caused a violation of legal certainty. Besides, the rule of treachery in the Criminal Code has also considered to have caused a violation of freedom of expression which has been guaranteed by Constitution. Analysis shows that the absence of treachery definition in the Criminal Code is not something that instantly becomes a problem in its application that causing the loss of legal certainty. Law enforcer, especially judge, in enforcing the rule of law must always use the method of law interpretation which appropriate with legal norm. With systematic interpretation, treachery can be interpreted according to the sentence of the rule as a unity of the legal system. In this case, the term treachery as regulated in Article 87 of the Criminal Code can be systematically interpreted as the basis for Article 104-Article 108 of the Criminal Code, Article 130 of the Criminal Code, and Article 140 of the Criminal Code which regulates various types of treason and their respective legal sanctions for the perpetrators. Further, on the argument that the articles of treachery in the Criminal Code also can not necessarily be said to limit the freedom of expression, because every citizen’s freedom has limitation, including the limitation of law and human rights. AbstrakPada tahun 2017, Mahkamah Konstitusi telah menerima tiga kali judicial reviewterhadap pasalpasal tindak pidana makar dalam Kitab Undang-Undang Hukum Pidana (KUHP). Pasal-pasal ini dipandang bertentangan dengan prinsip kepastian hukum dan kebebasan berekspresi. Tulisan ini menganalisis substansi yang menjadi perdebatan dalam perkara judicial review tersebut. Di antaranya perdebatan mengenai tidak adanya definisi istilah makar dalam KUHP yang menyebabkan persoalan kepastian hukum. Selain itu, pengaturan tindak pidana makar dalam KUHP juga dinilai melanggar kebebasan berekspresi yang telah dijamin oleh konstitusi. Analisis terhadap persoalanpersoalan tersebut menunjukkan bahwa ketiadaan definisi kata “makar” dalam KUHP bukanlah merupakan sesuatu yang serta merta langsung menjadi persoalan dalam penerapannya sehingga menyebabkan hilangnya kepastian hukum. Penegak hukum, terutama hakim, dalam menegakkan peraturan hukum selalu menggunakan metode penafsiran hukum yang sesuai dengan kaidah ilmu hukum. Dengan penafsiran sistematis, makar dapat dimaknai sesuai kalimat dari peraturan sebagai suatu kesatuan sistem hukum. Dalam hal ini, istilah makar yang diatur dalam Pasal 87 KUHP, secara sistematis dapat ditafsirkan sebagai dasar bagi Pasal 104-Pasal 108 KUHP, Pasal 130 KUHP, dan Pasal 140 KUHP yang mengatur tentang jenis makar beserta sanksi hukumnya masing-masing bagi para pelakunya. Selain itu, mengenai argumen bahwa pasal-pasal makar dalam KUHP berpotensi melanggar HAM dan dipandang bertentangan dengan konstitusi dapat dikatakan tidak beralasan. Sebab kebebasan HAM setiap orang tidak tanpa batas, di antaranya dibatasi nilai-nilai agama, keamanan, dan ketertiban umum.

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