Europe’s Jihad against journalists and free speech

By Steve Yuhas

The Lord Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has been found guilty of bringing disrepute to his office for what the London Evening Standard reported as his “comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard.” The three judge panel said that Livingstone was “unnecessarily insensitive and offensive” to the reporter and now for the next month (pending an appeal) the people of London will be without their mayor.

British citizen, David Irving, was sentenced to three years in prison in Austria because he holds the belief that the Holocaust did not happen.  Believing that his sentence was not hard enough the prosecution is appealing to the high court for an even tougher, ten year, sentence.

In Germany a 61-year-old man was indicted for writing the word Koran on toilet paper and sending it to local mosques; he was charged under Germany’s 1969 law that makes it illegal to “insult confessions, religious communities or groups promoting a special world view."  The man faces years in prison and a hefty fine.

And the Danish cartoon that has caused the rioting and deaths of almost 50 people around the Middle East and for the editor and cartoonist of the Mohammad cartoons to be the target of death threats and radical Islamic bounty hunters continue after four weeks.

Still, many people on the left in America believe that there is something superior about European thinking. The caveat being so long as you think the way government tells you to think and that is the part that so many people miss.

Imagine living in a society where opinions can be quashed under laws written by knee jerk reaction to over sixty year old events.  Imagine cultural icons on the left like George Clooney or Al Franken being taken into custody for something that they said on the air or in a film that offended the government or people on the right. The left would be having a First Amendment fit.

Some people applaud the fact that deniers of the Holocaust or those who make fun of Islam are being sent to jail, but what happened to the liberal view of freedom of speech and free will?  Does it only apply when making fun of Christians (nobody went to jail when a picture of Jesus was filled with urine and bandied about Europe being called art) and the perpetrator of the Virgin Mary remains free to make other religious icons out of feces. No freedom of speech and expression are mainstays of the left, but now proof exists that it is really a hostage to European leftist ideology.

Free speech seems, in Europe and in the American left, only to apply to those that they agree with and for the insensitive feelings of the left, but do not try to shut down or stop the free expression of a lefty – you’ll be labeled a Fascist or Nazi just as quickly as a Holocaust denier is jailed when he sells a copy of Mein Kampf on the Internet.

Germany, France and Austria (along with many other European nations) have laws protecting religions and specifically the Holocaust from people who would either deny it or make fun of religious groups.  These are the same countries that took great offense when the Prime Minister of Turkey wanted to charge the Dutch cartoonist and editor for publishing anti-Islamic cartoons that caused riots in his city.

Europe continues to be a Socialist respite where openness to thought and “academic freedom” is supposed to be flourishing, but when that thinking goes against either the government or something that the government decides to protect under the law – nobody bats an eyelash.

Being Jewish has allowed me to see all sides of the spectrum when it comes to tolerance: I do not take offense to those who say that the Holocaust did not happen because that thought is so marginal that even when lectures on the issue happen at major universities the rooms are sparsely filled and those who come do so out of morbid curiosity rather than through solidarity in purpose. The Holocaust happened – it is not like Atlantis where we only have Plato to believe.

I would rather know the people who hate Jews or who are anti-Semitic than not know them and pretend that they do not exist and find the laws of Europe distasteful that stop individuals from having an opinion one way or another.  The bad thing is that many leftist Americans look at Europe as a model society and fail to see the flaws with a system that may provide universal (substandard) healthcare, but also stops people from freely expressing their opinions.

Nobody should be jailed or suspended for their job for simply offending people, but it is interesting to note that the only time people are put in custody or removed from office is when their offense is taken on the left. There is not a case that can be found of a left wing politician being removed from office for putting down Christianity or other mainstream belief.

For those Americans who want to be like Europe – move there, but at least consider before you do that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law and that is not just something from a movie.

Unfortunately in Europe, it is real life.

Steve Yuhas is a columnist and radio talk show host on KOGO AM 600 and may be reached at www.steveyuhas.com or steve@steveyuhas.com