Revealed at debate on campus shock-horror

More pusillanimous bullshit from university students shocked at the existence of cartoons that mention Mohammed. It’s the University of Manchester this time, which is extra annoying on so many levels…

First the headline

Charlie Hebdo cover revealed at debate on campus

Omigod you don’t mean it?!! The cover of a satirical weekly newspaper “revealed” at a debate on campus??!? Oh my god everyone run for cover, climb the trees, launch the lifeboats, pass the brandy – whatever shall we do????? [Read more…]

Enhancing public safety

The Wiltshire police explained that all they were doing was making an assessment of community tensions for the purpose of stamping them out. That’s all. Kindly meant. No harm done. Clear off out of it.

Wiltshire Police has now confirmed that an officer did visit a local shop in Corsham to request the names of those who had purchased the copies of the magazine and issued an apology “to the members of the public who may be affected by this”.

A Wiltshire Police spokesman said: “Following the terrorism incident in Paris, France on 7 January 2015, Wiltshire Police undertook an assessment of community tensions across the county.

Ah yes, that’ll be the problem. When British Authority undertakes an assessment of community tensions, it always does so with an eye to telling everyone to shut entirely up about Islam and its prophet. That seems to be all it can think of to do. If Hitler came back they’d tell everyone to shut up about Nazism, so they would. [Read more…]

A member of Her Majesty’s police service visited

A letter to the Guardian…

Your offer of commemorative badges in support of journalistic freedomhighlighting “Je suis Charlie”, prompts me to suggest a degree of caution following my experience. Tongue in cheek, I asked my helpful newsagents to obtain a copy of the edition of Charlie Hebdo issued after the dreadful massacre in Paris, if indeed a copy was ever available in north Wiltshire. To my surprise, a copy arrived last Wednesday week and although the standard of content in no way matches that of the Guardian I will cherish it. However, two days later a member of Her Majesty’s police service visited said newsagent, requesting the names of the four customers who had purchased Charlie Hebdo. So beware, your badges may attract police interest in your customers.
Anne Keat
Corsham, Wiltshire

The names. Since when do newsagents even take the names of people who buy newspapers or magazines from them? But much more to the point…wtf? Why did they ask?

They’ve apparently apologized now, but I still don’t know why they asked.

Pursue the blasphemers

Ireland has ambitions to become another Pakistan, the Guardian reports.

The sale of the Charlie Hebdo magazine published after the Paris atrocity is threatening to become the first major test of the Irish Republic’s blasphemy law, Muslim representatives and secularists have warned.

Ireland’s Islamic Cultural Centre has said the presence of a depiction of the prophet Muhammad on the front page of the satirical publication, on sale now in Irish shops, is a clear breach of the country’s blasphemy legislation. [Read more…]

The reasons for the censorship

Here we go again. Another student union at another UK university says another “no you may not have a cartoon of Mo on your table/Facebook page/stall” to another student union secular society. This one is Manchester.

Outrage has been sparked on Twitter this week in light of a tweet from the University of Manchester Free Speech and Secular Society (FSS) accusing the University of Manchester Students’ Union of unjust censorship in preventing them from displaying a copy of the Charlie Hebdo magazine at the Refreshers’ Fair last Tuesday.

That’s a woefully inelegant sentence, but you get the idea. [Read more…]

Taubira v the internauts

From last week – Christiane Taubira herself gave her view on whether or not Charlie Hebdo is allowed to make fun even of religions.

Lors de la cérémonie d’obsèques de Tignous, l’un des dessinateurs tués dans l’attaque de Charlie Hebdo, Christiane Taubira a évoqué le “droit de se moquer de toutes les religions”.

À la question “peut-on rire de tout ?”, la ministre de la Justice a livré sa réponse aux funérailles de Tignous à Montreuil le 15 janvier 2015. [Read more…]