[carlosjobim]

There's an enormous difference between expelling a foreigner and imprisoning a citizen.

America absolutely has the upper hand in free speech. In Europe you will get sentenced for blaspheming against the Quran.

Edit: That's why the Quran burnings in Sweden was such a big deal. It was one of the countries who hadn't outlawed blasphemy against Islam. Of course any blasphemy against Christianity is perfectly legal in Europe and strongly encouraged.

[pona-a]

You are facing a constitutional crisis right now, something most EU members can say they do not.

  > Khalil called his lawyer, Amy Greer, from the building's lobby. She spoke over the phone with one of the ICE agents, who told her they were acting on State Department orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa. Greer said when she informed the agent that Khalil was a permanent resident of the U.S. in possession of a green card, the agent responded they would revoke the green card instead. When Greer said she needed to see a warrant before Khalil could be detained, the agent hung up. Abdalla said they were not shown a warrant and that "within minutes, they had handcuffed Mahmoud, took him out into the street and forced him into an unmarked car". A Columbia spokesperson declined to say whether, before the arrest, the university had received a warrant for the ICE agents to access property the university owned. The spokesperson also declined to comment on the arrest.

  > On March 9, Greer said she was uncertain of Khalil's whereabouts, noting the possibility that he could be as far away as Louisiana. Abdalla, who sought to visit him at a detention center in New Jersey, was informed that he was not there. Khalil is detained at the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana. [0]

Without appropriate warrants or being accused of a tangible crime in the court of law, a permanent USA resident has been detained, while being denied his right to speak with his lawyer for a significant part of his detention, with the post-hoc justification being his engagement in "anti-American", though not illegal, activity, ignoring claims of monetary ties with terrorist orgs made on national TV without being able to provide any corroboration when pressured.

Let's ignore political affiliations, who's on what team, and who you're rooting for. Applying abstraction, replace America with "Country X" and you see, plain as day, this as an attempt at silencing unfavorable speech. As a Ukrainian, sharing a language, geography, and personal connections across the border with Russia, I can tell you with certainty: this is how "disappearing" someone looks like. The target does not matter; the "enemies of people" set has a funny tendency to expand, starting from those for whom the least will stand up.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Mahmoud_Khalil

[immibis]

The government breaking the law isn't a constitutional crisis. It becomes a constitutional crisis when different parts of the government pull it in drastically different directions and the whole thing breaks apart. Currently the government is moving in exactly the direction the executive branch wants it to, the judicial branch has found that it has no traction to pull it back and the legislature isn't really even participating except for cheering on the executive. Like it or not, the possibile crisis has already been resolved by the executive discovering that it can do whatever it wants.

[carlosjobim]

> you see, plain as day, this as an attempt at silencing unfavorable speech.

Of course it is. But there's a huge difference between making a foreigner leave, and sentencing a citizen. Any foreigner can be denied entry to a country for any and no reason whatsoever, without any due process. So a foreigner's "right" to stay in a country sits very loosely.

[frenchyatwork]

> Any foreigner can be denied entry to a country for any and no reason whatsoever

That's a completely different thing than what happened here. Those are the rules, everyone knows that, and acts accordingly. The biggest problem in the US right now, is that the government isn't being ruled by it's own laws (sort-of). That's what's meant by a "constitutional crisis".

If the US government changed the rules to allow non-citizens to be arrested & held without warrants, then that would a different kind of thing. It would be a little totalitarian, but not a breakdown of the rule of law.

Note, I said sort-of above because the laws are written in such away as to be somewhat vague so that some people claim the government is acting legally.

[peppers-ghost]

The constitution does not only apply to citizens. If you're in the US you are supposed to have freedom of speech.

[carlosjobim]

And outside the US this wouldn't even be a discussion, because you don't have freedom of speech. That's why people consider him a victim for being kicked out.

[michh]

He has (or had) permanent resident status. On a path to becoming a citizen. I think ‘foreigner’ does not accurately reflect that.

[carlosjobim]

I think the word "foreigner" is perfectly correct. The difference is that as a foreigner, you have chosen to come to another country – among hundreds to choose from. As a native citizen, you haven't made any such choice and you might not be able to even if you wanted to.

[immibis]

If I have the choice to leave my home country or not, and I choose to stay, am I then a foreigner?

[deathanatos]

> there's a huge difference between making a foreigner leave, and sentencing a citizen

The White House has shown open contempt for the judicial and legislative branches. Why do you think they'd stop, simply because the person they've chosen to make an example of is a citizen?

But fine, he's a foreigner. What's so hard about the human right of due process, here? Serve the warrant. Appear in court. Argue the case that is, according to those in favor of yeeting this guy out the country, so blindingly obvious.

[deathanatos]

> Why do you think they'd stop, simply because the person they've chosen to make an example of is a citizen?

The ink was barely dry on my own comment:

> President Donald Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court in a series of emergency appeals Thursday to allow him to move forward with plans to end birthright citizenship

Due process must be enforced.

[shadowgovt]

> But there's a huge difference between making a foreigner leave, and sentencing a citizen

Not nearly as huge as one wants it to be, especially when the current executive is experimenting legally with citizenship revocation.

You divide human beings under your jurisdiction into wide categories with hugely unequal rights and the incentives are heavy for rulers to remove the inconvenient in their society by reclassifying them. It's much safer for citizen and non-citizen alike to strongly protect the non-citizen in your borders.

[riffraff]

where do you get sentenced for blaspheming the Quran in the EU?

Italy is a traditional religious country and blaspheming gets you <checks notes> a 50€ fine. Also, not a big deal if your blasphemies ara against Mary, that's ok.

[immibis]

What they were probably referring to is the times people made a nuisance of themselves or harassed Muslims in public with Quran blasphemy.

Nowhere in Europe is it illegal to sit at home and eat pork. It is illegal to harass other people. I gather that's not illegal in the US (unless the people you harass happen to be powerful) and the general mindset in the US is so far in that direction that a lot of Americans can't even conceptualize what harassment is.

[Symbiote]

A fine is a sentence, and I think it's a big deal that the law is applied inconsistently between e.g. Mary and Mohammed.

[riffraff]

I thought "sentence" is used for criminal offenses

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sentenced

might be a difference in meaning among jurisdictions.

EDIT: yeah it's odd that blasphemy against Mary is not illegal, but well, technical not a deity

[carlosjobim]

And who exactly considers Mohammed to be a deity?

Edit: Blaspheming against Islam is a criminal offense in many European jurisdictions.

[riffraff]

I don't know who does, but not the Italian legislation, blaspheming Mohammed appears to be ok in Italy too.

We don't know for sure cause there is no case law, while blaspheming Mary has been argued in court.

[carlosjobim]

In Finland. Do you want the court case number?

Edit: I'll give you an easily digestible link in English from the government television channel:

https://yle.fi/a/74-20015426

"The UN Human Rights Committee has urged Finland to change the criminal provision, arguing that it restricts freedom of expression."

You can easily find the law in matter, the prime minister on video saying that burning the Quran is outlawed, and many other media links from government channels talking about this. And there are court cases where people have been sentenced in Finland for burning the Quran – not in public as has been the case in Sweden.

Before you write that the law applies to the Bible and Christians as well – it is not the case. Police, prosecutors and judges will not use the law against any other blasphemy than against Islam.

[mrtksn]

It's just punishment differences based on paperwork available, that doesn't mean there's difference in the designation of the action as "crime".

[michh]

I don’t know where you’re getting your news but this simply isn’t true

[carlosjobim]

Directly from the courts of law. When European governments and courts do unflattering things, the media makes sure to shuffle it under the carpet. There's a very different culture around free speech and public debate in Europe vs America.

[michh]

Yeah, but all you reference is Finland. That’s one country with strict blasphemy laws, not specifically about Islam, but about any religion. It’s curious you seem to only care when they apply it to Islam. You get into the same amount of trouble there whether the book you’re burning is a bible or a quran.

And, yeah, I agree. Finlands blasphemy laws are bad and need to be abolished. But the way you’re representing them as specifically about islam and as being representative for most of Europe comes across as disingenuous to me.

And, yeah, there’s more European countries classified as red (worst category) on https://end-blasphemy-laws.org/countries/ but definitely not a majority. Israel is on there too by the way.

[carlosjobim]

> That’s one country with strict blasphemy laws, not specifically about Islam, but about any religion. It’s curious you seem to only care when they apply it to Islam.

The police, the prosecutors and the courts only care about this law when it applies to Islam. Yes, it is very curios indeed!

> You get into the same amount of trouble there whether the book you’re burning is a bible or a quran.

That's absolutely not true. You in fact get into no trouble at all.

[Symbiote]

I have downvoted your comment because of "the media makes sure to shuffle it under the carpet". These cases are widely reported in national media.

I wasn't familiar with the Finnish politician, but it's easy to find coverage of the case and related news on Finland's national broadcaster: https://yle.fi/a/74-20015426

[carlosjobim]

Well I'm not talking about any Finnish politician. I'm talking about everyday people who get sentenced by the courts for blasphemy against Islam. These cases get local media coverage at most.

[fundatus]

Believe me, I think blasphemy laws should be abolished everywhere, but publicly burning Bibles/Qurans/whatever doesn't sounds like a "everyday people" activity to me.

[mrguyorama]

It's not, but it should be allowed to be an everyday kind of thing. If your society does not allow open critique of itself to be normalized, that's bad.

But the US right definitely has no high ground to go around complaining about freedom of speech in the one country that has exceptionally weird and dumb blasphemy laws, seeing as we now live in a USA where the Whitehouse is explicitly saying only they can choose what information journalists have access to. The evangelical right were explicitly calling to deport US citizens for expressing their opinions on college campuses. IMO, reacting at college kids saying the country sucks is one of the most unamerican and pathetic things you could possibly do, but we did once shoot a bunch of college students who dared to stand in a crowd because we shouldn't have been bombing Cambodia, and 58% of the country, when surveyed by Gallup, blamed the students for the incident, so hey, maybe we have made progress, since we only deport them now, instead of murdering them.

[carlosjobim]

This is a somewhat typical European response, even though you might not be European: always blame the victim.

Everyday people are killing each other in trenches in the Ukraine as we speak.

The cases I know where "everyday people" have been sentenced for blasphemy against Islam is when people have emotionally lashed out. One case where a gay man live streamed himself spitting at the Quran and cursing it after the Orlando nightclub massacre in the name of the Quran. It wasn't a real Quran, but the court said that it didn't matter. He might not be an "everyday person" to you. You might have acted more cool in such a situation.

And there are a plethora of other cases where Europeans have been sentenced for publicly criticizing Islam, where no Quran burning has been involved.

The situation in reality, beyond hacker ideology, is that European countries are prosecuting and sentencing people for blaspheming or criticizing Islam. And it usually is not activists who are targeted.