this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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You're not allowed to be naked in public. Doesn't matter if you want to protest jeans. You can't be naked.
You're not allowed to take a shit on the curb outside of whatever you want to protest either.
You're not allowed to burn flags of forgein nations.
plenty of expressions that can be used to protest are banned. What's so different here? You can still burn as many books as you want in your own backyard. You just can't do it at the town square.
And as a final note. It's a proposition. It hasn't been voted on. How about you save your outrage until they've actually decided on what to do?
Noone is talking about indecent exposure or defecating in public, we're taking about burning your own possession.
I'd also argue a private citizen should be allowed to burn any flag they want. It's the same thing as with books.
Point is. There are plenty of things we can't do.
What purpose does a public book burning serve beyond provoking and insulting?
That's why it's not allowed to burn forgein flags. It's just a means to insult a group of people in public.
Now, I'm not for a ban on book burning, religious or otherwise. If you have the permit go nuts. But the arguments people present are just really really bad.
you know in most places it is illegal to start any fire in public? You are not allowed to start a campfire on a public plaza or barbeque in most parks already. Why should there be a specific exception for burning things to incite hatred and violence against people?
All of that is fine. Limit where you can burn something, limit the toxicity of the item burned, but do not limit burning things based on "offense".
You need to see the difference between limiting something because it's dangerous vs causing offense. That is a dangerous road no democratic government should go down.
Inciting violence in public by burning symbols of a minority group is a threat to democracy and should be prohibited. Take it from a German, we have experience with escalating hatred and because of that we also have proper laws against hate speech now.
Burning a religious book is a form of hate speech and serves only to incite hate.
The significant difference is that public nakedness (which isn't specifically illegal in most European countries) and shitting on the curb have concrete consequences for others. The laws are there to protect others from unwanted sexual attention (exhibitionism) and literal disease (shit on the street).
The limit for the freedoms of one person should be the safety and freedom of others. Burning books does not infringe on other's safety or freedom.
Finally: it's stupidly easy to circumvent this. The same provocative assholes that are burning Qurans now, will just shift to other forms of desecration or other ways of offending Muslims. If the goal is to prevent protests that provoke authoritarian or extremistic regimes, you're just going to have to make that the law, because laws like this will just make people protest in another, equally provoking way.
There is a thing called "incitement against ethic group"
Grabing a microphone and preaching in public that Muslims are subhuman camel-piss drinkers. Would not be legal, despite it not infringing on someones immediate safety or freedom. It's incitement against ethnic groups.
As opposed to preaching that "Islam is a bad religion that promotes gender inequality", which is fair criticism.
One is incitement, the other criticism.
The framework is already there. The proposition would probably put that the burning of religious scripture in **public **falls under that category. (I don't actually know if that is the case, but it's a fair assumption)
Obviously you can desecrate and provoke in other ways. And I'm sure people will find other ways. And there will be new debates and court cases to decide if it's incitement against ethnic groups or not.
I'm personally not 100% sure where I stand if it should be legally OK to burn books in public or not. There are many things we are allowed to do in private, that we are not allowed to do in public. Maybe book burnings outside of embassies is one of those things. Just like we don't burn flags outside of embassies.
Incitement is illegal, yes, because it indirectly infringes on others safety and freedom. By encouraging violence against a group of people, that group is put in danger.
Luckily, there is a justice system that can apply nuance to each case, so that people can be convicted of inciting violence even though the do not explicitly threaten anyone. A "thinly veiled threat" or implications can be enough.
My opinion is that we have robust laws in place to prevent threats, incitement of violence, etc. adding blasphemy laws restricts freedom of expression without adding any protection of value.
They're not adding blasphemy laws. How are you not keeping up?