"French genocide law: President Sarkozy orders new draft" reports that after the rejection of a law which had made it a criminal offence to say that a "mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I" had not occurred, a new law will be written for consideration by the French parliament (2012). France's Constitutional Court has struck down the original law passed on January 23, which had greatly upset Turkey, on the grounds that it was "an unconstitutional attack on freedom of expression" (¶ 8) to make it a crime punishable by a prison sentence or fine to deny that the historical reality of the genocide, which Armenians believe to mark the start of event of their modern history.
I was pleased to read that the French Constitutional Court has annulled this law, and saddened that Sarkozy is immediately going to try to replace it with another law. Did the Turks really kill a million or more Armenians in 1915 - 1916? I am sure that they did. It's the sort of bloody thing that dying empires do, especially despotic, authoritarian empires such as the Ottoman Empire. It reminds me of the very similar situation in Germany, where it is a crime punishable by a prison sentence to say that the Nazis under Hitler did not murder millions of Jews during World War II. I strongly disagree with this law, too, because it also violates the right to free speech of German citizens. I am certain that the Nazis legally committed all the murders and other vile acts that they are generally accused of, but again, that is not a good enough reason to punish people who disagree and peacefully want to state their different opinion.
As I suggested in my blog post last night, every law for censorship, every law which restricts free speech, must also impose ignorance about the censored topic, so that laws against free speech must make worthless the opinion of people on the topic protected by such laws (Peter, 2012). While I am sure that millions of Jews were indeed killed by the Nazis, and that the Ottoman Turks legally murdered a million or more Armenians, it can only be possible to know such things if the opposing views can be stated and supported so that they can be taken into account, the evidence and arguments assessed, and then rebutted. It the opposite opinions cannot legally be stated, then it is impossible for any errors to be corrected, and whatever I or anyone believes about the censored topic is nothing but an unfounded, unbalanced belief: a worthless, ignorant opinion.
But there is also another reason why I greatly dislike such laws against free speech: they are deeply undemocratic. They deny the basic democratic principle that all people are equally human and that all people must be respected as human beings with the same basic dignity and worth. I think that the US does much better than Germany, and perhaps France, because under its excellent constitution, the US Supreme Court regularly knocks down government laws that would interfere with the free speech of American citizens; for example: Americans can burn their flag in protest; vile, stupid, ugly Christian groups can say gay people are sick and that God hates fags (gays); the US Supreme Court and constitution even protect the right of such evil religious groups to go and protest at the funeral services of American soldiers killed fighting for their country; and just last year, the US Supreme Court rejected laws restricting the sale of violent video games to children for similar free speech reasons. Now, I don't like the violent video games, and I obviously dislike Christian groups spewing religiously inspired hate and deliberately offending people, but I am even more certain that a healthy democracy must protect the treat as equal the basic human rights of such people. In fact, I don't much like flag burning either, but again, such deeply offensive forms of speech must still be protected.
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References
Peter. (2012, February 28). Why warmer means colder. Class Blog - AEP at AUA. Retrieved February 29, 2012 from http://peteraep.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-warmer-means-colder.html
Free speech is a heavy topic and a luxury for a chinese person, because chinese governmet is always authoritarian from the fist day of Qin Dynasty to today.Maybe the only difference between those feudalistic Dynasty and nowadays is that the autarchs are the kings of each Dynasty historically and the autarchs are a group of communists nowadays.
ReplyDeleteActually,i am not sure our government is leading by a gourp of people or just one person,you know,the public can't know what is happening in an opaque government.Unfreedom on speech limits people's thought from the moment they go to elementary school,because patriarchy spread ererywhere in china.Pressing other person makes powerful people feel happy and authoritatived.How a freaky society Chinese people live in! I am sad to talk about this topic!So heavy!