Guest 657- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 3,037
French prosecutors said the designer will stand trial later this year for allegedly hurling anti-Semitic remarks towards a couple at a Parisian bar last week. If he is found guilty, he could face up to 6 months in jail and up to $31,000 in fines.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
This is wrong, even more wrong than what this prat did.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
That are the laws of France, Barry.
Could you imagine what would happen if someone hurled abuse about the British in our own Country, something really nasty, and then imagine someone else saying that to prosecute would be wrong?
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Freedom of speech and that includes the freedom to make a public prick of yourself.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
alex
people hurl abuse at the british all the time over here, no laws are broken.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
barryw,another sensative posting.
Guest 657- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 3,037
In 1972, France modified the 1881 freedom of the press law that reads:
"Those who have provoked to discrimination, hatred, or violence with regard to a person or a group of persons due to their origin or their belonging or non-belonging to an ethnic group, a nationality, a race, or a specific religion, will be punished with imprisonment between one month and one year and with a fine of between 2,000 and 300,000 francs or with one or the other of these penalties". The law covers "speeches, cries, or threats expressed in public places or meetings".
In 1990, the country also created the Gayssot Act, which prohibits "any discrimination founded on membership or non-membership of an ethnic group, a nation, a race or a religion".
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
This is political correctness and so it should be. A man with public notoriety said something that society believes to be offensive. This is what people seem to fail to understand about pc and it's evolution. Just because something wasn't offensive in the past, doesn't mean it isn't offensive now. This is the reason people no longer wish to have Jim Davidson on TV.
What he said was unacceptable but prosecuting him seem a little extreme, I think he will suffer enough for his ignorance. Let's not forget that the queen mother openly supported Hitler and didn't care much for Jews or 'black folk'. Nobody arrested her.
Absolutely. Peer pressure and social unacceptance are powerful tools for change. Prosecution seems a little OTT. But those are the laws in France, so be it.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
DT1 - I disagree that it is wrong to say something that some people think is offensive. People can take offense at anything these days and quite frankly they need to grow a backbone and get a life.
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
This is about saying something that most people find offensive, that makes it wrong. If 'right' and 'wrong' aren't defined by social means then they actually have no meaning.
Many things are not just 'a matter of opinion' the mantra of individualists.
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
It doesnt work that way nowadays BarryW. The level of uproar right across the population is the key. Take the Sky Sports guys. It was the widespread level of response from their paying customers that finished those guys..its market driven to an extent, because you cannot offend your other customers by allowing the one individual to run amok. Thats the problem.
The view of the majority works on this.. much as it does in an election. Jim Davdison as mentioned there by DT is a case in point. We talked about him years ago on here didnt we? but his days were over. Being offensive to women and homosexuals on that Hells Kitchen programme finished him off. It wasnt a comic routine he was doing, but it was how he felt in himself. It all came out. A daily misogynist and homophobe. No TV company would risk it with him anymore.
Nicely summed up PaulB. A bit of mickey taking (great fun in the right place!) is a world away from misogyny and hatred.
It is one thing to cause offence (I agree, on the same principle that I quote, that peer pressure and social unacceptabiliy are powerful tools, causing offence is also a powerful tool and not always a bad thing) and quite another to disrespect and repress with words a subsection of society.