| You're right the point about the AfD is a weak one, so I won't argue it further (though I don't cede my ground, either). But you did not respond to the rest of my comment. Free speech in Germany (and, for that matter, most of Europe), does not exist. There is a great article in The Atlantic about this, titled "In Europe, Speech Is an Alienable Right": https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/its-not-fr.... The European Court of Human Rights ruled that: > > By accusing Muhammad of paedophilia, [E.S.] had merely sought to defame him, without providing evidence that his primary sexual interest in Aisha had been her not yet having reached puberty or that his other wives or concubines had been similarly young. In particular, [E.S.] had disregarded the fact that the marriage with Aisha had continued until the Prophet’s death, when she had already turned eighteen and had therefore passed the age of puberty. To which the author rightly responds: > Having sex with a child isn’t pedophilia, in other words, if the child’s prepubescence is not your biggest turn-on, or if you also have sex with adults, or if you continue having sex after the child reaches maturity. (Am I alone in finding the Austrian court’s reasoning offensive? Just look at a map of blasphemy laws in Europe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law). Germany is on par with Yemen, Oman, Turkey, Indonesia, Myanmar... This is not a good thing to have in common with those countries. I maintain that the government should never hold the right of censure. It is a slippery slope. Given the ECHR rules, it's quite possible criticism of Islam will be fully illegal in the next 10 years. This is dangerous. |
The Muhammad story is about Austria (which I did not discuss and do not know a lot about). I don't know much about the religious issue at hand either, but the possibility of getting fined 500€ for accusing people of paedophilia if your claim does not hold does not strike me as such horrendous. Isn't this slander in the US and illegal as well?
How is Germany on par with the countries you listed? You may not disturb public peace with speech and not insult people. Example is a dude who printed "The Holy Quran" on toilet paper. Nothing wrong with enforcing human decency via the law. Such insults is also literally what Nazis did in the first stage of the holocaust. Looking at the countries this is supposed to be on par with: Yemen uses blasphemy laws to imprison establishment enemies. Oman is not even on the list. Turkey is extra ironic because there was a comedian who made a parody of the Turkish government and Germany had a diplomatic crisis because Germany refused to do something against it (obv. totally on par). Myanmar put a guy in jail for wearing Buddha headphones. Indonesia's mention is so brief I guess you could say the law sounds similar.
Still not seeing the slope, sorry...