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From: "Gordon Mohr" <gojomo@usa.net>
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References: <20020917172627.A1DBDC44D@argote.ch>
Subject: Defending Unliked Speech Re: Hanson's Sept 11 message in the
    National Review
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Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 00:29:01 -0700

Robert Harley writes:
> Chuck Murcko wrote:

> > But I must feel obligated to defend to the death your right to do so.
>
> «Je désapprouve ce que vous dites, mais je défendrai jusqu'à ma mort votre
> droit de le dire»
> - Arouet Le Jeune, dit «Voltaire» (1694-1778).

Here's hoping that tradition perseveres for the novelist
currently on trial in Paris for calling Islam "the stupidest
religion"...

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/020917/5/ozxa.html

# Tuesday September 17 11:07 AM EST
#
# French Writer Tried As Anti-Islam, Protest Erupts
# By Caroline Brothers
#
# PARIS (Reuters) - Provocative French novelist Michel Houellebecq
# faced a Paris court on Tuesday for allegedly inciting racial hatred
# by calling Islam "the stupidest religion" and its holy book the
# Koran a depressing read.
#
# The case, brought against him by four Muslim groups, is a cause
# celebre reminiscent of the Salman Rushdie affair, pitting freedom of
# expression against religious sensitivities.
#
# The Muslim groups, which include the Mecca-based World Islamic
# League and the Paris Mosque, accuse the writer of insulting Islam in
# an interview with the literary magazine "Lire" during last year's
# launch of his novel "Plateforme."
#
# Lire is also on trial over the remarks, which have taken on an added
# significance in France in the atmosphere of heightened sensitivity
# and concern about Islam following the September 11 attacks by Muslim
# radicals in the United States.
#
# Shortly after the trial started, 11 people in the courtroom stripped
# off their shirts to reveal T-shirts saying "No to the censure of the
# imams" and "Marianne veiled, Marianne raped" -- a reference to the
# female symbol of the French republic.
#
# "Freedom of expression! freedom of expression!" they and other
# Houellebecq supporters chanted after they were thrown out of the
# courtroom at the main law courts in central Paris.
#
# While intellectuals argued before the trial that Houellebecq should
# be free to write what he wants, Lyon Mosque rector Kamel Kabtan
# retorted: "We are for freedom of expression, but not for insulting
# communities."
#
# BETE NOIRE
#
# Houellebecq, 45, the bete noire of contemporary French literature,
# is no stranger to controversy. He offended conservatives and the
# politically correct left with his 1998 novel "Les Particules
# Elementaires" ("Atomised" in English).
#
# Paris Mosque rector Dalil Boubakeur says Muslims have been insulted
# once before by Houellebecq, who had the main character in Plateforme
# admit he felt "a quiver of glee" every time a "Palestinian
# terrorist" was killed.
#
# The World Islamic League, the Lyon Mosque and the National
# Federation of Muslims in France have joined the Paris Mosque in
# bringing Houellebecq to trial.
#
# France's Human Rights League joined them as a civil party, saying
# Houellebecq's comments amounted to "Islamophobia" and deserved to be
# sanctioned as part of the league's struggle against discrimination
# and racism.
#
# The Paris Mosque has hired Jean-Marc Varaut, one of France's leading
# trial lawyers, whose past clients include Maurice Papon, the former
# official condemned in 1998 for Nazi-era crimes against humanity for
# sending Jews to death camps.
#
# RESTORING BLASPHEMY?
#
# Houellebecq's lawyer Emmanuel Pierrat argues that the case
# effectively re-establishes the notion of blasphemy, despite the fact
# that France as a secular state has no such law, and says
# Houellebecq's opponents want to deny him freedom of expression.
#
# He also argues that the interview in Lire truncated a six-hour
# conversation and Houellebecq was not given the chance to approve the
# article before it appeared.
#
# Houellebecq's publisher Flammarion has distanced itself from the
# author, whose comments some say may have cost him France's
# prestigious Goncourt prize -- for which he had been a contender.
#
# The novelist, who lives outside Cork, Ireland, writes in a detached
# style about a bleak world in which people have forgotten how to
# love.
#
# Translated into 25 languages, "Atomised" incensed France's 1968
# generation with its scathing descriptions of the hippie era but won
# him France's November prize in 1998 and the Impac award, one of the
# world's biggest fiction prizes.
#
# Losing his case may mean a year in jail or a $51,000 fine.

- Gordon


