If David Irving Were an Anti-Muslim Cartoonist

^{Category: Free Speech | Human Rights in Europe}

---

World News Guide Jennifer Brea hits a home run in an op-ed that brings together many topics near and dear to my libertarian heart:

• The three-year prison sentence of British white supremacist David Irving, meted out last month by the Austrian government based on a speech he gave in 1989. (Although I oppose the law banning Holocaust denial on free speech grounds, I am in sympathy with those who support it.)
• The French ban on the wearing of headscarves by Muslim schoolgirls.
• The recent controversy surrounding those infantile Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

What do these examples have in common? Well, maybe it's what they don't have in common that's the problem:

What could be more troubling to the Western psyche and its love of “free speech” than Muslims’ reactions to the Danish cartoons of Mohammed? How about the way that standards of free speech and tolerance in Europe are applied apparently depend on the ethnic or religious group to which a person belongs ...

It is not difficult to understand the circumstances under which these laws arose – Europe’s historic and recent problems with anti-semitism are well-known. However, it is troubling that so many countries that just weeks ago splashed offensive images of the Prophet Mohammed across the pages of their national newspapers and called it a bold defense of free speech, support laws that make anti-Semitic remarks or Holocaust denial a crime punishable by imprisonment.

Double standards like these are often the norm when it comes to European societies’ relationship with their immigrant groups. In France, when religious symbols were banned from public schools in order to prevent Muslim girls from wearing headscarves in class, an exception was carved out for Jews and Christians to allow for the “discrete” wearing of crosses and Stars of David ...

Yes, it's certainly remarkable that in countries where newspapers have proudly published offensive anti-Muslim cartoons on their front pages in the name of free speech, movements are afoot to ban public expression of the Islamic faith. France, with its headscarf ban, is only part of a much larger trend. In the Netherlands, there's talk of banning the burqa:

The country’s hardline Integration Minister, Rita Verdonk, known as the Iron Lady for her series of tough anti-immigration measures, told Parliament that she was going to investigate where and when the burka should be banned. The burka, traditional clothing in some Islamic societies, covers a woman’s face and body, leaving only a strip of gauze for the eyes.

Mrs Verdonk gave warning that the “time of cosy tea-drinking” with Muslim groups had passed and that natives and immigrants should have the courage to be critical of each other. She recently cancelled a meeting with Muslim leaders who refused to shake her hand because she was a woman.

The proposals are likely to win the support of Parliament because of the expected backing by right-wing parties. But they have caused outrage among Muslim and human rights groups, who say that the Government is pandering to the far Right.

There are already similar codes being enforced in some regions of Italy and Belgium.

Although very few Muslim women in Europe actually wear the burqa, the Dutch proposal represents one more attack on the free religious expression of law-abiding Muslim immigrants living in Europe--immigrants who are then vilified for failing to understand why the free speech rights of bigoted cartoonists are not also restricted.