© (Photo: Alexandre Hervaud/cc/flickr)Anti-Elite and anti-Zionist Dieudonné, arrested Wednesday morning for a Facebook post.
The French Justice Ministry said that of those arrested, four are minors and several had already been convicted under special measures for immediate sentencing, AP reports. Individuals charged with "inciting terrorism" face a possible 5-year prison term, or up to 7 years for inciting terrorism online. None of those arrested have been linked to the attacks.
Controversial comic Dieudonné was one of those taken into custody Wednesday morning for a Facebook post in which he declared: "Tonight, as far as I'm concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly" - merging the names of the satire magazine and Amedy Coulibaly, the gunman who killed four hostages at a kosher market on Friday.
Comment: This comment seems to have been predictably misunderstood. He was writing about how the persecution of the anti-free speech Zionist French elite makes him feel, pointing out the injustice in how he is viewed.
The full quote: "After this historic, no legendary, march, a magic moment equal to the Big Bang which created the Universe, or in a smaller (more local) way comparable to the crowning of the (ancient Gaullish king) Vercingétorix, I am going home. Let me say that this evening, as far as I am concerned, I feel I am Charlie Coulibaly."
Since last week's multiple terrorism attacks that left 17 people dead, "France ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and glorifying terrorism," AP reports.
The irony that the west was rallying to defend a magazine that was attacked for its alleged slander of Islam, while at the same persecuting individuals for voicing their views was not lost on many.
"As pernicious as this arrest and related 'crackdown' on some speech obviously is, it provides a critical value: namely, it underscores the utter scam that was this week's celebration of free speech in the west," journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote on Wednesday.
Greenwald went on to question the charge of "defending terrorism" brought against Dieudonné and others. Greenwald continued:
Also Wednesday, Ines Pohl, who runs the German satire magazine die tageszeitung, published an op-ed in Politico warning against the exploitation by political leaders in the wake of such an attack or crisis, which in this case is the European right pushing an agenda of closed borders and general ethnocentrism.If you want "terrorism defenses" like that to be criminally prosecuted (as opposed to societally shunned), how about those who justify, cheer for and glorify the invasion and destruction of Iraq, with its "Shock and Awe" slogan signifying an intent to terrorize the civilian population into submission and its monstrous tactics in Fallujah? Or how about the psychotic calls from a Fox News host, when discussing Muslims radicals, to "kill them ALL." Why is one view permissible and the other criminally barred - other than because the force of law is being used to control political discourse and one form of terrorism (violence in the Muslim world) is done by, rather than to, the west?
"The blood in Paris wasn't even dry when the first German politician, Alexander Gauland, one of the top candidates from the Alternative für Deutschland party, claimed this killing as a proof that Germany has the right to fear the influence of Muslim culture and that Germans have the right, and the obligation, to defend their Christian heritage," Pohl writes.
Drawing a line between the current climate since the Paris attacks and the post-9/11 crackdown, Pohl goes on to note that next week the CIA torture reports are to be released in German and adds: "This report is the proof of how a country can be misled when it becomes ruled by fear."
Torture victim Maher Arar and others shared their reactions to the French crackdown online.
Maher Arar @ArarMaher
So France arrests Dieudonné 4 hurting the feelings of 70M French but praised publication of Hebdo even if hurts feelings of 1.6B Muslims.
2:30 PM - 14 Jan 2015
Dave Zirin @EdgeofSportsFollow
France has arrested 54 people for offensive speech since Charlie Hebdo killings. In other news, French PM Hollande has outlawed irony.
2:26 PM - 14 Jan 2015
The pope has also come out in recent days and said that free speech should have its limits, that one should not mock or belittle anothers religion.
I think that he is wrong, and anyone else that tries to curb free speech is also wrong, furthermore it has proven impossible to stop for long, like a dam built across a river trying to hold back the flood, censorship only works as long as you continue to mend the cracks that appear in the structure, and as long as you have resources and manpower to stopup the holes.you even have to build a flood gate into your dam to release pressure once in a while or the whole structure will be destroyed by that very thing it is trying to contain; something the elites do well by bread and circus. But eventually the water will always find a way past the dam!
The free exchange of ideas and words can be held back; the powers that be can build all the dams they like in an attempt to control and condense the flow of water/ideas, they then will have to spend more and more resources to maintain these artifical structures, all the while aiding that which they have tried to control.
Dams hold back a hell of a lot of water/ideas a hell of a lot of pressure every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year, dam builders have to be on a constant vigil against the smallest crack ,the slightest shift in the ground could spell disaster, water is patient, it works to its own agenda, oppsition lends it strength it can wear down continents and drown mountains, it seeks the path of least resistance and undermines that which opposes it; just like an idea whose time has come.
Then one day a hairline crack is overlooked or a slight shifting of the ground that the dam sits on is ignored and the water/idea goes to work with all that pressure behind it that sets of a chain reaction that destroys the dam and releases an awesome amount of energy into a system that can't cope and is swept away.
After a while the river may resume it's normal level though the course may by changed.
Ideas are like water, one doesn't drink the mud in the water, it must be cleaned first,purified before we can drink it to have maximum benefit to the body of civilization.
Purification and transmutation of ideas and not censorship is a better way and you dont have to build any dams.