Free Speech in Israel and the Muslim World
Hasan Yahya, Ph.Ds
In two contrasting decisions in Israel and the OIC, both are violating free speech and expression on political grounds.
In Israel: the Kinaset (Israeli Parliament) was discussing a new law for punishment of Arab Israelis in case they remember the catastrophe happened to Palestinians in 1948. Justification of such law is the celebration of Israelis of the state establishment in the same year. The punishment was between one to three years imprisonment to any one remember and celebrate sadly the Nakbah of 1948. The change in the law enhance the power of democratic government of Israel to punish villages or cities celebrate their defeat. I wonder, where freedom of speech in Israel, while Israelis ask every official visitor to the state to visit the Holocaust memorial? I think it is fair to say that Arab Palestinians should celebrate their defeat, unless Israelis forgot about celebration of their defeat in what is called, the Holocaust. Israel instead of prohibiting Palestinians from remembering and celebrating their defeat, should develop and advance a set of best practices on combating acts of hostility and intolerance of their settlements residents equally without restricting freedom of speech, and should invite other civil society groups, and other political parties to share their experiences in this regard. Israel is not only the government, Israel belongs to all Arabs as well as Israelis. If Israel rejects this fact, it broadens the hate (and war) crimes (according to Goldstein’s (stone) report committed by some IDF leaders and personnel, covering defensive and security slogans.
In the Muslim countries, the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and Nigeria amongst other African countries, are proposing what human rights organizations have described as a potentially dangerous bill to the United Nations on “defamation of religion . The bill was sent to the Ad Hoc Committee for the Elaboration of Complementary Standards in advance of the second session taking place in Geneva from 19 to 30 October 2009
The OIC in fact, is proposing the development of “new binding normative standards relating to religious ideas, objects and positions while incorporating contemporary issues” such as “defamation of religions, religious personalities, holy books, scriptures and symbols”; “provocative portrayals of objects of religious generation as a malicious violation of the spirit of tolerance”; “prohibition of the publication of gratuitously offensive attacks on matters regarded as sacred by the followers of any religion and ; “abuse of the right to freedom of expression in the context of racio-religious profiling”.
By proposing this the OIC and the African group are proposing that a new instrument should provide for the “legal prohibition of publication of materials that negatively stereotypes, insults or uses of offensive language on matters regarded by followers of any religion or belief as sacred …” and “legal restriction to public insults”.
While nothing wrong in the proposed prohibition of potentially (safe) or dangerous bill or the new instrument of providing prohibition of materials that negatively stereotype and insult Muslims or any other religions. The wrong in this proposition, however, should be taken seriously, which is freedom of religion in the Muslim world, which may be translated to any material, political or social calling for change of traditional heretics of leaders and government branches, especially that most Arab and Muslim Nations do not follow the rules of law as such as the democratic rational political systems. I think, it is hard to believe, for example, that recent success (89.62% from 94.49% last election ) of Tunisian president in his fifth term presidency is totally, honest, or that other leaders continue to rule 40 to 50 years in some cases, (Libya, Jordan, and Egypt for example). So the new vision of blasphemy in Israel and the Muslim world has common similarities in prohibiting free speech for Palestinian Arabs and defamation of religion on political grounds. Israel may have the excuse, at least, as an occupying force compared to occupied Arab political systems by traditional regimes and foreign interests as some describe it. ( 655 words) www.dryahyatv.com
Hasan A. Yahya is an American Arab scholar, and a professor of cultures and sociology. He published 19 Arabic and 8 English books and 200 plus articles on sociology, psychology, politics, poetry, IQ Test Measurement and short stories in both Arabic and English. His articles may be found on articlesbase.com, Face book and other internet sites. His recent book published on Amazon titled: Therapy Cases: Mental and physical, 2008, and Lawlaki: Poetry Diwan, 2000 Bayt Min al-Shi’r al-Arabi. (all in Arabic on amazon- 2009). His recent activities reflects his talents and knowledge on youtube?s Dryahyatv.com Dr. Yahya resides in Michigan, USA. Dr. Yahya has four children and eight grandchildren.
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