Free Speech Hypocrisy In France (Video)

 Since the Charlie Hebdo attack, France has been all about freedom of speech – but actions speak louder than words. Recently the French arrested a comedian for a Facebook post and a 16-year-old boy for allegedly posting a spoof Charlie Hebdo cover. While you may not agree with what those people did, shouldn’t the freedom of speech be absolute?

Why I’m fed up with free speech fundamentalists

Source: huffingtonpost.co.uk

By: Mehdi Hasan

Dear liberal pundit,

You and I didn’t like George W Bush. Remember his puerile declaration after 9/11 that “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists”? Yet now, in the wake of another horrific terrorist attack, you appear to have updated Dubya’s slogan: either you are with free speech… or you are against it. Either vous êtes Charlie Hebdo… or you’re a freedom-hating fanatic.

I’m writing to you to make a simple request: please stop. You think you’re defying the terrorists when, in reality, you’re playing into their bloodstained hands by dividing and demonising. Us and them. The enlightened and liberal west v the backward, barbaric Muslims. The massacre in Paris on 7 January was, you keep telling us, an attack on free speech. The conservative former French president Nicolas Sarkozy agrees, calling it “a war declared on civilisation”. So, too, does the liberal-left pin-up Jon Snow, who crassly tweeted about a “clash of civilisations” and referred to “Europe’s belief in freedom of expression”.