Ghost of a flea: Where credit is due

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June 11, 2010

Where credit is due

Kudos to France as it leads Europe with a ban on Hamas TV. That said, we should not need hate laws to tell us not to broadcast enemy propaganda in time of war. Yet another small victory wrapped in evidence of decline.

France became the first European government on Wednesday to order the French-owned satellite station Eutelsat to stop its broadcast of the Hamas Al-Aksa program because of violations against European anti-hate laws. Al-Aksa programs “incite hatred or violence for reasons of religion or nationality,” said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero.

Al-Aksa TV has produced a children’s show with a warlike Mickey Mouse character urging children to wage holy war against the US and Israel. In March, the US Treasury Department designated Al-Aksa a “global terrorist entity.”

Details at the link.

Related: Hungarian lawmakers have passed a bill equating Communist era crimes to the Holocaust and banned denying it under threat of imprisonment.

An amendment to the Criminal Code was passed by the parliament’s majority center-right party FIDESZ (Hungarian Civic Union) on Tuesday, Itar-Tass reports. According to the new legislation, those denying, casting doubts on, or depreciating the crimes committed by the Communist regime will be facing from one to three years behind bars.

I confess some satisfaction at the thought of bringing charges against a variety of academics and apparatchiks under this legislation. Starting with human rights commissars.

Now off to find out if Hungarians claim international standing for the law and, if so, whether they will accept whole mailing lists of denialists. I am thinking there are whole sections of the American Anthropological Association that need to stand trial.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at June 11, 2010 11:28 AM

Comments

I am thinking there are whole sections of the American Anthropological Association that need to stand trial.

Let's send them the U.S. State Department.

Posted by: harrison at June 11, 2010 09:23 PM