Fallaci on Trial
Anyone concerned with human rights should be appalled by the (laughably weak) charges against Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci. Unlike Michelle, I do not agree with Fallaci’s assessment of Islam, but I am willing to concede that her writings (from what I have seen) do not constitute “hate speech”, which is the basis of speech-restricting laws, such as those against Holocaust denial.
That said, is Michelle’s reporting of the facts accurate? Of course not. Her agenda requires that she distort the narrative to the extent that she can claim that ‘European dhimmitude’ will land on U.S. shores in no time. In her Women Warriors episode of VENT from May 9, our esteemed host claimed that Fallaci “faces up to two years in jail, in Italy”. It appears that she found this fact in a WSJ editorial that was written well before the law was changed in January 2006. From the New Yorker Fallaci profile that Malkin herself linked to:
A Mussolini-era criminal code holds that “whoever offends the state’s religion, by defaming those who profess it, will be punished with up to two years of imprisonment.” Though the code was written to protect the Catholic Church, it has been successively amended in the past ten years, so that it encompasses any “religion acknowledged by the state.” The complaint against Fallaci marks the first time that the code has been invoked on behalf of any religion but Catholicism. (In January, Fallaci’s supporters in the Italian Senate pushed through an amendment to the code, reducing the maximum penalty to five thousand euros.)
As a respected member/journalist of the New Media, I’m sure Michelle will be eager to clear this up for her readers, and call for the repeal of this oppressive statute.
I’ve modified a comment I made in the post below, and here it is:
Ok. I have a feeling that the European Court would be very interested in sanctioning Italy for this law. They’ve done similar things in the past to other countries and their old laws. A teensy little county like Sark is a good example: they ruled that its feudal system violated the UN Human Rights policies which forced Great Britain (whose Privy Council oversees Sark) to force the government of Sark to conceded to democratic principals. No doubt the expansion of this law was the way to appease the religious folks who feel that it is necessary to persecute people who speak out against them (in this case the Catholic establishment in Italy) versus doing the right thing and de-establishing religion in Italy all together.
Comment by skippy — June 12, 2006 @ 8:21 pm
And here again (modified only to correct my stupidity):
Malkin and her ilk do not want such a law removed from the books since it allows a country to persecute someone who speaks out against a religion. What they want is to have the unfair application of the law so that it can be cherry-picked to apply to only the religions they think appropriate. This lack of tolerance of other religions is exactly why we have the no-establishment clause in the US Constitution: it is to prevent some nutjobs from proclaiming their magic spaghetti monster is better than some other nut-job’s magic spaghetti monster….
In any case, the idea that a law is going to be applied unfairly follows right along with Malkins’s tolerance of incarceration of the Japanese and no incarceration of people of German descent or pretty much any thing else she takes a stand on. I fear her scary, unfair world where someone gets to pick and choose who a law applies to and to whom it does not.
Comment by skippy — June 12, 2006 @ 8:23 pm
skippy,
A few of your recent comments have been sent into the moderation queue. I’m not sure why, but it may have something to do with your not using real email address the comment form. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to include one. I’m just surprised that this hasn’t come up yet.
Comment by Ryan — June 12, 2006 @ 8:42 pm
I thought it was something like that. Maybe I’ll make a hotmail account to receive any hatemail from Michelle. ;-)
Comment by skippy — June 12, 2006 @ 8:52 pm
Heh. I’m pretty sure email addresses don’t show up. It’s just for “accountability” purposes. You’ll only be in danger of receiving email from me from time to time.
Comment by Ryan — June 12, 2006 @ 8:56 pm
Well that’s no problem, then.
Hey and have you noticed her interesting tracebacks? At one time they were claiming over 203 tracebacks on her Fallaci piece. Now it is down to 2. Perhaps there is another ghost blogging post in this. It would be interesting to really know how many hits she gets.
Comment by skippy — June 12, 2006 @ 9:05 pm
I believe that 199 (or so) of those trackbacks were from this post on a blog I’ve never heard of. Probably a bug in that site’s scripts.
I’m surprised that my trackback is still there. :-)
Comment by Ryan — June 12, 2006 @ 9:10 pm
Oriana Fallaci said of Muslims, “they breed like rats.”
“Europe becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam,” she writes. “In each of our cities lies a second city: a Muslim city, a city run by the Koran. A stage in the Islamic expansionism.”
“I do not want to see a 24-metre minaret in the landscape of Giotto when I cannot even wear a cross or carry a Bible in their country, so I blow it up!” she said.
She is a fascist, no wonder Michelle loves her so much
Comment by sonic — June 13, 2006 @ 7:22 pm
May be before you agree with Ms. Fellaci or others like her you should read muslim scholors, better yet read Quran like Picktal translation or something, and investigate for your self, instead of reading people who have axe to grind, idelogicall or otherwise. Unfortunately many, even in liberal camp, has such a narrow view of Islam. There are more hitoric communities of christian and jews in muslim countries then they have been in the west, do not confuse muslim attitude because of clonialism and its effect on local christian or jewish population and islamic reation to it. You can carry bible and wear cross in many muslim countries with the exception of Saudia Arabia, which is prohibited by religious rule, same rule which allows christian to keep their churches and laws, where provided more rights under Khilafa (obviously not now, muslim don’t have rights now). It is amazing that you say you agree with her, she is a biggot who does not want europe to look middle eastern and it burn her.
Comment by Muhammad — April 8, 2007 @ 5:46 am