By Micah Halpern
I've Been Thinking:
The other day, in Copenhagen, a Danish court ruled that inciting terror included statements on facebook accounts.
A Danish bookseller, originally from Morocco, named Sam Monsour posted "We are all terrorists, and we are proud." Monsour and his lawyer argued that it was free speech in a free country and they actually drew the parallel to the Danish cartoonists that lampooned the prophet Mohammed.
There are several huge issues at hand. One might expect this reaction from a book seller - but the lawyer should know better.
Lampooning a historical figure, regardless of how venerated, is a clear issue of free speech. The fact that people were insulted by a cartoon does not violate an issue of free speech. Being insulted is not one of the rules used to limit free speech. That is just disrespect and poor taste.
However, preaching hatred and inciting violence _ that needs to be reined in by the law.
So the Danish court is correct.
There is some latitude. The court could have ruled that it was freedom of speech simply because Monsour was on line and was siding with the terrorists.
But given the environment in Europe at this very moment, the court felt that they had to stem the tide of public affinity with terror.
The court made a clear connection between public affinity and the support of terror and the terror itself.
This should be the direction courts take regarding terror in all Western democracies. Publicly supporting acts of terrorism is a form of incitement to terror. Publicly supporting terror justifies the destructive acts of terror.
And that should never be condoned or allowed.
Micah@MicahHalpern.com
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