Amnesty’s Judgement of France

In a battle of ideas, the best outcome is for your adversary to drop their own case. The easiest way to do this is by showing them that they wouldn’t like it to be applied on their own selves. Namely, reveal their inconsistency.

Using someone’s standard against them doesn’t mean I accept their standard at all. It just means that you guys can’t even live up to it yourselves so better off rethinking it completely.

In the case of France’s free speech policy, “Parliament is currently discussing a new law that criminalizes images of law enforcement on social media. It is hard to square this with the French authorities’ vigorous defence of the right to depict the Prophet Mohammed in cartoons.”

“Freedom of expression also protects the ability to criticize [cartoons] perceived as stereotypical or offensive. Being opposed to the cartoons does not make one a separatist’ a bigot or an islamist.”

I’ve yet to see a society or community where absolutely anything goes in terms of expression, for the simple reason that people don’t like to be upset all the time. Whatever bothers enough people, eventually will be disallowed by law or custom.

The more financial and political clout those people have, the faster upsetting them becomes illegal.

In Sharia, we have Allah and His Prophet ﷺ as first guides on everything including public expressions. As for the secular system, they have to figure out their usul, their methodology on this. What standard will be used? And will it last or will it be changed every ten years.

Revealed law requires submission which is hard on the ego, but in exchange you get clarity and stability on moral and ethical questions like this one, as well as abortion, intoxicants, taxation, and other hotly contested issues.

Here’s the full article. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/11/france-is-not-the-free-speech-champion-it-says-it-is/