Courts
Rewrite History
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§ Germany has made no secret of its desire to see its new law copied
by the rest of the EU.
§ When employees of social media companies are appointed as the
state's private thought police and given the power to shape the form of current
political and cultural discourse by deciding who shall be allowed to speak and
what to say, and who shall be shut down, free speech becomes nothing more than
a fairy tale. Or is that perhaps the point?
§ Perhaps fighting "Islamophobia" is now a higher priority
than fighting terrorism?
A new German law introducing state censorship on social media
platforms came into effect on
October 1, 2017. The new law requires social media platforms, such as Facebook,
Twitter, and YouTube, to censor their users on behalf of the German state.
Social media companies are obliged to delete
or block any online "criminal offenses" such as libel, slander, defamation
or incitement, within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint -- regardless of
whether or the content is accurate or not. Social media companies receive seven
days for more complicated cases. If they fail to do so, the German government
can fine them up to 50 million euros for failing to comply with the law.
This state censorship makes free speech subject to the arbitrary
decisions of corporate entities that are likely to censor more than absolutely
necessary, rather than risk a crushing fine. When employees of social media
companies are appointed as the state's private thought police and given the
power to shape the form of current political and cultural discourse by deciding
who shall be allowed to speak and what to say, and who shall be shut down, free
speech becomes nothing more than a fairy tale. Or is that perhaps the point?
Meanwhile, the district court in Munich recently sentenced a German
journalist, Michael Stürzenberger, to six months in jail for posting on his
Facebook page a historical photo of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin
al-Husseini, shaking the hand of a senior Nazi official in Berlin in 1941. The
prosecution accused Stürzenberger of "inciting hatred towards Islam"
and "denigrating Islam" by publishing the photograph. The court found
Stürzenberger guilty of "disseminating the propaganda of
anti-constitutional organizations". While the mutual admiration that once
existed between al-Husseini and German Nazis is an undisputed historical fact,
now evidently history is being rewritten by German courts. Stürzenberger has
appealed the verdict.
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A German court
recently sentenced journalist Michael Stürzenberger (pictured) to six months
in jail for posting on his Facebook page a historical photo of the Grand
Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, shaking the hand of a Nazi official
in Berlin, in 1941. The prosecution accused Stürzenberger of "inciting
hatred towards Islam" and "denigrating Islam" by publishing
the photograph. (Image Source: PI News video screenshot)
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Germany has made no secret of
its desire to see its new law copied by the rest of the EU, which already has a
similar code of conduct for
social media giants. The EU Justice Commissioner, Vera Jourova, recently said she might be
willing to legislate in the future if the voluntary code of conduct does not
produce the desired results. She said, however, that the
voluntary code was working "relatively" well, with Facebook removing
66.5% of the material they had been notified was "hateful" between
December and May this year. Twitter removed 37.4%, and YouTube took action on
66% of the notifications from users.
While purportedly concerned about online "hate speech,"
one EU organization, the EU Parliament, had no qualms about letting its
premises be used to host a convicted Arab terrorist, Leila Khaled, from the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) at a conference about
"The Role of Women in the Palestinian Popular Struggle" in September.
(The EU, the US, Canada, and
Australia, have all designated the PFLP a terrorist organization). The
conference was organized by, among others, the Spanish delegation of Izquierda
Unida (United Left) as part of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left bloc
in the European Parliament.
In the UK, Prime Minister Theresa May also said that she will
tell internet firms to tackle extremist content:
"Industry needs to go further and faster in automating the
detection and removal of terrorist content online... ultimately it is not just
the terrorists themselves who we need to defeat. It is the extremist ideologies
that fuel them. It is the ideologies that preach hatred, sow division and
undermine our common humanity. We must be far more robust in identifying these
ideologies and defeating them -- across all parts of our societies."
Prime Minister May keeps insisting that "these
ideologies" are spread "across all parts of our societies" when
in reality, virtually all terrorism is Islamic. Meanwhile, her own Home
Secretary, Amber Rudd, has refused to ban the political wing of
Hezbollah. Hezbollah's hate speech, apparently, is perfectly acceptable to the
British authorities. So is that of South African Muslim cleric and hate
preacher Ebrahim Bham, who was
once an interpreter to the Taliban's head legal advisor. He was allowed to
enter the UK to speak in the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, a government building,
at the "Palestine Expo" a large Jew-hate event in
London in July. Bham is known for quoting
Nazi Propaganda Minister Goebbels and saying that all Jews and Christians are
"agents of Satan".
Meanwhile, a scholar such as Robert Spencer is banned from entering the UK, supposedly
on the grounds that what he reports -- accurately -- is "Islamophobic".
The British Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) also recently stated that online
"hate crimes" will be prosecuted "with the same robust and
proactive approach used with offline offending". The decision to treat
online offenses in the same way as offline offenses is expected to increase
hate crime prosecutions, already at the highest recorded level ever.
Prosecutors completed 15,442 hate crime cases in
2015-16.
Jews in Britain, who have experienced a dramatic increase in
anti-Semitism over the past three years, are frequently on the receiving end of
hate crimes. Nevertheless, their cases constitute less than a fraction of the
statistics. In 2016/17, the CPS prosecuted 14,480 hate crimes.
According to the Campaign Against Antisemitism:
"we have yet to see a single year in which more than a couple
of dozen anti-Semitic hate crimes were prosecuted. So far in 2017, we are aware
of... 21 prosecutions, in 2016 there
were 20, and in 2015 there were just 12. So serious are the failures by the CPS to
take action that we have had to privately prosecute alleged
anti-Semites ourselves and challenge the CPS through judicial review, the
first of which we won in March. Last year only 1.9% of hate crime against Jews
was prosecuted, signaling to police forces that their effort in investigating
hate crimes against Jews might be wasted, and sending the strong message to
anti-Semites that they need not fear the law... Each year since 2014 has been a
record-breaking year for anti-Semitic crime: between 2014 and 2016,
anti-Semitic crime surged by 45%".
Almost one in three British Jews have apparently considered leaving Britain due
to anti-Semitism in the past two years.
British authorities seem far more concerned with
"Islamophobia" than with the increase in hate crimes against Jews. In
fact, the police has teamed up with Transport for London authorities to encourage people to report hate
crimes during "National Hate Crime Awareness Week",
which runs from October 14-21. Transport for London and the Metropolitan Police
will hold more than 200 community events to "reassure communities that
London's public transport system is safe for everyone". The events are
specifically targeted at Muslims; officers have visited the East London Mosque
to encourage reporting hate crimes.
Last year, London mayor Sadiq Khan's Office for Policing and Crime
(Mopac) announced it was
spending £1,730,726 of taxpayer money policing speech online after applying for
a grant from the Home Office. Meanwhile, Khan said that he does
not have the funds to monitor the 200 jihadists estimated to be in London, out
of the 400 jihadists who have so far returned to the capital from Syria and
Iraq. (He also implicitly admitted that he does not know the whereabouts of the
jihadists who have returned). When askedby the journalist
Piers Morgan why the mayor could not have them monitored, Khan answered:
"Because the Met Police budget, roughly speaking, 15 percent,
20 percent is funded by me, the mayor. The rest comes from central government.
If the Met Police is being shrunk and reduced, they've got to prioritize and
use their resources in a sensible, savvy way."
When Morgan asked what could possibly be a bigger priority than,
"people coming back from a Syrian battlefield with intent to harm British
citizens", Khan did not answer. Perhaps
because it is hard to admit in public that fighting "Islamophobia" is
now a higher priority than fighting terrorism?
Judith Bergman is a columnist, lawyer and political analyst.