 Dozens of academics, media advocates and Muslim leaders discussed the balance between freedom of expression and respect for religious faith, as a senior EU official called for an urgent "relaunch of dialogue" with the Islamic world. At a three-hour conference in Paris, led in part by the Arab Commission for Human Rights, speakers sought to defuse the spiraling anger and violence over the Prophet Muhammad caricatures that were published in European newspapers, including several in France. "Freedom to express oneself has never meant the right to just say anything," said Regis Debray, a French intellectual. "The freedom of each person both begins and ends with the protection of the rights of others."
| That's kind of a perversion of libertarianism, isn't it? I can accept the proposition that your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose, but legally words aren't justification for battery. I'm not aware of any right not to be offended, or I'd have been suing people and/or having them jugged since I was a tad. |
The conference's sponsors included Paris-based media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders and several Muslim groups.
| Pretty eager to toss it in, aren't they? |
Meanwhile, EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said the row over the cartoon was an opportunity for relaunching a dialogue with the Islamic world. Frattini denied that he was proposing that journalists censor themselves, but reiterated that the media should show responsibility with such sensitive material in future.
| "But, really, don't go censoring yourselves, now. Just... ummm... show responsibility. Right. That's the ticket." |
"We see the urgent need to come back to the dialogue," he told reporters after talks in Brussels with a Muslim leader, Mohammad Sharif of the World Islamic Call Society. "It's a common interest for journalists, for Muslim people, for Christian people, for Arab states, for European states ... to exploit this crisis as a good opportunity to relaunch the dialogue," Frattini said.
| Yeah. That's what you need: dialog. They tell you what to do, and you say "Yes, sir." |
Sharif underlined the depth of feeling felt by the Islamic world over the cartoons. "You cannot respect human dignity by creating campaigns of hate," he said, calling the drawings a "humiliation" of the Islamic prophet. |