A gulf in the perception of speech – Helsingborgs Dagblad

A gulf in the perception of speech – Helsingborgs Dagblad

It can become a conversation about double standards.

Shortly after the terrorist attack against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was the Saudi ambassador to Paris Ismail Al-Sheikh arm in arm with world leaders in the major manifestation of freedom of speech – where even Stefan Löfven attended.

The same regime that sentenced a blogger to ten years in prison and a thousand lashes for having “blasphemed Islam” claimed to then stand up for the right of all people to express their opinion.

The Saudi regime is far from alone.

In fact, a yawning chasm between a number of countries in the West and much of the rest of the values ​​in the perception of speech.

The judgment against Raif Badawi is rare obnoxious.

The 30-year-old blogger founded in 2008 a liberal and feminist network for the discussion of religion and politics. Four years later, he was arrested in Jeddah. Last Friday was executed the first fifty lashes in at Friday prayers in a mosque. It was two days before Ambassador Ismail Al-Sheikh marched for freedom of speech in Paris.

The next round of caning would be distributed on Friday. When examined Badawi by a doctor. It turned out that he was so badly damaged that he risked dying. Whipping No postponed – until Badawi recovered.

Immediately after the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the Jewish shop in Paris – where 17 people plus the perpetrators were killed – was heard condemnations of terror and tributes of freedom of expression from around the world. But soon broke a completely different kind of protest out.

When the survivors of Charlie Hebdos editorial published a new number with a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad on the cover condemned confounded by the regimes in Egypt and Turkey. Islamist leaders in a wide range of countries protested. In Pakistan erupted violent riots, as well as in Mali, Senegal, Sudan, Somalia and Algeria. In Niger, burned irate mobs churches; at least five people were killed.

The pattern is then again: Just as Jyllands Posten Mohammed cartoons in 2005 sparked an unreasoning anger is now making the French cartoons same. Then as now exploited the anger of political and religious leaders for different purposes.

The Western view of freedom of expression – taken from the French and American Revolution – seem as alien to those in power as broad popular stocks in the Middle East:

Freedom is the right of individuals. The threshold for the lawful goes where other individuals are affected. Slander. Incitement to hatred. A religion, whether Islam or Christianity, can not ever be protected from criticism and ridicule.

Once upon a time was “blasphemy” a crime in Sweden. In the Middle East, most people today that it will be forbidden to revile the religion.

So why are marching as Saudi Arabia’s ambassador – and leaders from a wide range of dictatorships – the openness and freedom in Paris?

The truth is that Ismail Al-Sheikh rather expressed the Saudi regime’s determination to combat terrorism. A certain kind of terrorism, specifically. In the US-led war on terror is both Saudi Arabia and Egypt allied with the West. For the royal family in Riyadh represents al-Qaeda and the Islamic State is at least as great a threat as the US and Europe.

Ms Wallström will now protest against pryglingen of Raif Badawi.

She will, however, unlikely to take up another aspect of double standards: Sweden’s military cooperation with Saudi Arabia and the fact that we sell weapons to a regime that punishes bloggers with flogging.