Apple Bids Adieu to ‘Jew or not Jew?’ iPhone App in France (CNN)
EXCERPT: “Jew or not Jew?”: That is just part of the question. An iPhone app bearing this name has been yanked from Apple’s App Store in France amid threats of a lawsuit and demands for its removal.
The app, still available elsewhere, pulls together a database of thousands of famous Jews – including movie stars, musicians, Nobel Prize winners and more – and offers insights into their backgrounds. Jewish mother? Jewish father? A convert? For $1.99 in the United States, app owners can know.
“I’m not a spokesman for all Jews, but, being Jewish myself, I know that in our community we ask ourselves often if this or that celebrity is Jewish or not,” he told the French newspaper. “For me, there’s nothing pejorative in saying publicly that this person or that person is Jewish. Instead, it’s something to be proud of.”
But no matter Lévy’s personal background or motivation, compiling details about peoples’ identities without their consent is against the law in France. And that was all Apple needed to know to swipe “Jew or not Jew?” from France’s App Store shelf.
Article18: Poland — Citizens March in Bialystok to Protest Antisemitism; Death Metal Singer Not-Guilty After Trashing Bible on Stage
By Martin Surridge – For much of the twentieth century, Poland served as a sort of punching bag for many of Europe’s strongest armies. Half a million Polish soldiers died in the First World War, the country was brutalized by the Nazis in the Second World War, and for the last half of the century, Poland was repressed by Soviet-inspired communists in Warsaw. Today, Poland is struggling with a completely different set of problems, many of which are common to Europe as a whole–immigration, the expansion of the E.U., and changes in cultural norms that accompany a demographic shift. In addition to these already vexing concerns, Poland is also grappling with the problem of where to draw the line in the case of free speech and offending religious sensitivities. 
This is Article18–RLTV’s weekly blog specifically dedicated to religious liberty issues in other countries around the world. Each week, we profile a different nation, and the struggles facing one of its religious communities. This week, Poland, where citizens in Bialystok protest against horrendous statements of antisemitism and a death metal singer is allowed to go free after ripping up a Bible during one of his concerts.
During the Second World War, what was arguably history’s most deadly and vicious assault on religious liberty took place in the unassuming countryside of Nazi-occupied Europe. Almost half of the Jews killed in the Holocaust were from Poland. That number is approximately three million. Ninety percent of Poland’s Jews were murdered in Nazi concentration camps, and today, in some towns, the only legacy of that tragedy is a plaque or a statue of remembrance. So last week, when local “vandals used green paint to spray a swastika and ‘SS’” on a monument dedicated to the hundreds of Jewish villagers who were burned alive in Jedwabne village during the Holocaust, protesters took to the streets demanding an end to the “wave of thoughtless hatred.”
Other hostile phrases such as “I don’t apologize for Jedwabne” and “They were flammable” were spray-painted onto the monument. The march was led by Sen. Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz and the mayor of the city of Bialystok as well as other concerned citizens.
The AP reports that those attending “The ‘March of Unity’ walked in silence from the city center to a monument of Ludwik Zamenhof, a Jewish doctor born in Bialystok, who invented the Esperanto language. It occurred without violence or arrests, despite a counter-demonstration by people chanting nationalist slogans.”
Sadly, this is not an outlying incident–”Other recent anti-Semitic or racist attacks in Poland have targeted a synagogue in the village of Orla, a Muslim center in Bialystok, and the Lithuanian minority in the Punsk region.”
A lack of respect for the religious beliefs of others seems to be a common trend in Poland as of late. But in some scenarios, acts of religious intolerance fall within the bounds of free speech, as in the case of Polish death metal singer Adam Darski.
“Adam Darski, who goes by the stage name Nergal and is the frontman for the death metal band Behemoth, was charged after he ripped up the Bible during a 2007 concert in Gdynia, in the country’s north.” Three weeks ago, “a Polish judge found a death metal singer innocent of offending religious feeling, ruling that his ripping up of a Bible during a show was a form of artistic expression consistent with the style of his band.”
Poland is a strongly Roman Catholic nation, with almost 90% of the country identifying themselves as such. So when Darski ripped pages out of the Bible, tossed them to concert-goers and instructed them to burn them, he was charged with offending religious feeling. But after the court explained that it had no “intention of limiting freedom of expression or the right to criticize religion,” Darski celebrated the verdict on his website writing, “I’m so glad to see that intelligence won over religious fanatics in my home country [but] there’s still so much work to be done to make things right.”
The line between free speech and criminal defamation of a religious group can sometimes be rather thin and some insensitive hardliners in Poland will probably accuse the law of double standards. But surely there is a noticeable difference between these two incidents.
Matthew Kramer is a close friend of mine from college, an amateur entertainment journalist and serious fan of heavy metal. Along with Brad Kenyon, who created the logos for this blog, and RLTV contributor David Ranzolin, Kramer and I ran our college’s biweekly student newspaper. He saw Darski’s death metal group, Behemoth, in concert a few years ago and while nothing outrageously provocative occurred–other than the usual screaming and ear-piercing music–he explained what separates even the most offensive art from criminal, racist acts.
“There is a difference,” Kramer said. “When the Bible is torn up on stage some people are offended, just like with the Koran.”
“But vandalizing a Holocaust memorial is worse because of the associated pain. There are still people alive who had family members killed during that time.”
Article18 is a weekly blog written by Martin Surridge, Associate Editor of Religious Liberty TV. Article18 logo and other artwork created by Bradley Kenyon.
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Don’t forget to check out other recent Article18 entries.
Article18: Norway — Personal Reflections on the Origin of a Tragedy
Article18: Uzbekistan — Recent Incidents of Violence Against Christians Alarm Religious Minorities
Fear, Incorporated: Who’s Paying for all that Islamophobic Paranoia (FP)
EXCERPT: One of the distinctive features of American democracy is the permeability of our political institutions. It’s an incredibly wide-open system, given First Amendment freedoms, the flood of money that corrupts the electoral process, and a wide array of media organizations and political journals that can be used to disseminate and amplify various views, even when they have no basis in fact.
This situation allows small groups of people to have a profound impact on public attitudes and policy discourse, provided that they are well-organized, well-funded, and stay on message.
– Stephen M. Walt
A Madman and His Manifesto (NYT)
EXCERPT: It passed with only scant notice, as with so many of the rude extremes of American life in a kinetic media age. The bodies of those Norwegian children slaughtered by a terrorist had yet to be fully recovered, let alone buried, when Glenn Beck compared the victims to Nazis.
The summer camp where children of the Norwegian Labor Party went for soccer, swimming, political debates and lectures “sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth,” Beck said in his national radio broadcast.
Egypt’s Coptic Christians Call for More Religious Freedom (AJE)
EXCERPT: Angry protests by Egypt’s Christian Copts have become a familiar scene. Hundreds clashed with police last November over plans for a new church building in Giza, leaving two protesters dead. And in January of that year, Copts protested in the southern town of Nag Hamadi after six members were killed in an attack on a local church on the Coptic Christmas Eve.
But, following the latest tragic church attack in Alexandria which claimed 23 lives, many feel the current daily protests by Coptic youth could represent a new phenomenon. Thousands of the younger generation have marched in protest in Alexandria and in Cairo, among other major cities. They’ve brandished religious symbols, chanted slogans, called for more religious freedom and clashed with the police.
Their protests were widely reported by national and foreign media and were broadly seen as a natural reaction to the unprecedented attacks targeting the Coptic community. And sympathetic Egyptian Muslims have organised rallies expressing their condolences, condemning the attack. But some analysts believe the anger shown by Coptic youth represents a deeper problem – a new generation who feel increasingly marginalised and discriminated against, exhibiting a collective sentiment that their religious believes have come under attack.
A Tennessee mosque, a good American story (First Amendment Center)
EXCERPT:
By Charles C. Haynes, Director of the Religious Freedom Education Project
December 31, 2010 — The No. 1 religion story of 2010 was the emotional, often ugly debate over plans for an Islamic center two blocks from ground zero in Manhattan, according to Religion Newswriters Association members — and just about everyone else making a list. Not far behind was the media-driven obsession with the Florida pastor who got more than his 15 minutes of fame by dangling the threat of Quran-burning before eager reporters camped outside his church.
But to really understand the growing fear of Islam in America in 2010 — and public reaction to it — we should move beyond the sensational and take a closer look at the lesser-known but more instructive mosque-building controversies in local communities, especially the yearlong fight in Murfreesboro, Tenn.
The saga in Murfreesboro, with its protests, counter-protests and courtroom battles, got less attention than the emotional fight near ground zero. But it’s a good case study for how religious freedom is playing out these days in local communities across the country.
For the full story: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/commentary.aspx?id=23734
Colorado School’s Rosary Rule Disputed (KKTV)
EXCERPT: COLORADO SPRINGS — An announcement made by a Colorado Springs middle school, stipulating how students can wear rosaries, has the ACLU speaking out against the decision. The group says religious liberty does not stop at the entrance to a public school.
[District spokesperson Elaine] Naleski says some students were offended at how others were wearing the religious symbol, but the ACLU disagrees with that reasoning. “The First Amendment protects the right of students to express their faith by wearing crosses, rosaries, or other religious symbols without interference from school officials. Our Constitution protects the right to individual religious liberty and the ACLU is here to support everyone who chooses to exercise that right,” said Mark Silverstein, the ACLU Legal Director, in a statement sent out to the media.
Mainstreaming Hate in the Netherlands (ForeignPolicy)
Here is an excerpt from an article by former Financial Times writer and Dutch media Middle East correspondent Ferry Biedermann published on ForeignPolicy.com on October 4, 2010.
The rise of the far right has hardly caused a ripple in the Netherlands. The Dutch coalition deal was done before the end of September, marking the political whitewashing of the previously unacceptable Geert Wilders, the provocative, and peroxide-blond political wunderkind MP, and his right-wing Party for Freedom. He has agreed to lend his support to a minority government [and] in return Wilders has been given freedom to pursue anti-immigrant measures and several openly anti-Muslim initiatives, including a burqa ban and closer monitoring of Islamic schools.
His outspokenness has made him a hated figure for some Muslims, and he lives under constant police protection. Recently, an Australian imam called for his beheading, the last in a long line of threats. Wilders himself argued in July on the website muslimsdebate.com that he does not hate Muslims — he just opposes Islam and wants Muslims to liberate themselves from its shackles. [But] Geert Wilders is slowly but surely making Islamophobia an accepted element of political rhetoric in the Netherlands. To give an idea of the tone of his discourse in the Netherlands, he has called for a “head rag tax” on women wearing headscarves. He favors banning the Quran, wants to close Muslim schools but not equivalent Christian or Jewish ones, wants to force immigrants to sign “assimilation contracts,” and wants to include the “Judeo-Christian character” of the state in the constitution.
Petraeus Condemns U.S. Church’s Plan to Burn Qurans (WSJ)
EXCERPT:
KABUL—The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said the planned burning of Qurans on Sept. 11 by a small Florida church could put the lives of American troops in danger and damage the war effort.
Gen. David Petraeus said the Taliban would exploit the demonstration for propaganda purposes, drumming up anger toward the U.S. and making it harder for allied troops to carry out their mission of protecting Afghan civilians.
…
Gen. Caldwell said many Afghans do not understand either the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment or the fact that President Barack Obama can’t simply issue a decree to stop Mr. Jones from his demonstration.
…
“There is no question about First Amendment rights; that is not the issue,” Gen. Caldwell said. “The question is: What is the implication over here? It is going to jeopardize the men and women serving in Afghanistan.”
EDITORIAL: FTC floats Drudge tax
Read the full article: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/4/ftc-floats-drudge-tax/
EXCERPT:
The ideas being batted around to save the industry share a common theme: They are designed to empower bureaucrats, not consumers. For instance, one proposal would, “Allow news organizations to agree jointly on a mechanism to require news aggregators and others to pay for the use of online content, perhaps through the use of copyright licenses.”
In other words, government policy would encourage a tax on websites like the Drudge Report, a must-read source for the news links of the day, so that the agency can redistribute the funds collected to various newspapers. Such a tax would hit other news aggregators, such as Digg, Fark and Reddit, which not only gather links, but provide a forum for a lively and entertaining discussion of the issues raised by the stories. Fostering a robust public-policy debate, not saving a particular business model, should be the goal of journalism in the first place.
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