[taliv]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060223/wl_nm/crime_religion_germany_dc_2

DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) - A German court on Thursday convicted a businessman of insulting Islam by printing the word "Koran" on toilet paper and offering it to mosques.
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The 61-year-old man, identified only as Manfred van H., was given a one-year jail sentence, suspended for five years, and ordered to complete 300 hours of community service, a district court in the western German town of Luedinghausen ruled.

The conviction comes after a Danish newspaper printed cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad -- sparking violent protests around the world from Muslims who saw the images as sacrilegious and an attack on their beliefs.

Manfred van H. printed out sheets of toilet paper bearing the word "Koran" shortly after a group of Muslims carried out a series of bomb attacks in London in July 2005. He sent the paper to German television stations, magazines and some 15 mosques.

Prosecutors said that in an accompanying letter Manfred van H. called Islam's holy book a "cookbook for terrorists."

He also offered his toilet paper for sale on the Internet at a price of 4 euros ($4.76) per roll, saying the proceeds would go toward a "memorial to all the victims of Islamic terrorism."

The maximum sentence for insulting religious beliefs under the German criminal code is three years in prison.


so, insult islam, go to jail.

i can't emphasize enough how important it is that freaks on the supreme court not be allowed to use foreign precedent to make judgements about rights in the US. *** are they thinking?

[Sindawe]

A German court on Thursday convicted a businessman of insulting Islam by printing the word "Koran" on toilet paper and offering it to mosques. :what: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Now that fellow shows some chutzpah.so, insult islam, go to jail.Well, it IS Germany. And they have had some darn foolish laws in the past. I concur taliv, we cannot permit our Supreme Court be influenced by and make judgments based on foreign precedent.

[gc70]

The maximum sentence for insulting religious beliefs under the German criminal code is three years in prison....brought to us by the same country that gave us Martin Luther.

[Fletchette]

...brought to us by the same country that gave us Martin Luther.

Har!

Perhaps he should have nailed the toilet paper to their door!

[Don't Tread On Me]

Ah yes, seems we Libertarians were right once again. I guess following the doctrine of non-interventionism that our founders laid out was the best idea.


How many Americans died in 2 massive bloddy wars so that the Europeans can remain anti-liberty socialist/fascists?


The only people worth dying for, is ourselves. Only we are worth it. American men only have a duty to their God, family, selves, then nation -- not some other nations.


Sorry, not trying to hijack. I don't think this particular case is any worse than the anti-holocaust denial laws they have over there. You have to wonder how much of this pressure to "kiss and make up" stuff is imposed on them by certain influences. That is tyranny of the highest level. Oh well. I'm not worried. I'm worried about this sort of thing coming to our shores someday.

[newman32]

Lets not forget why Germany has these laws regarding insults to religion. Remember that whole Holocost thing? The laws were implemented to protect religious minorities as a result of even stupider German things like the Nurenberg Laws that were apparently quite popular back in the day.

Sure, its un-American, but Germany is not America. They can't sing "Deutchland Uber Alles" either. I'm not crying for them. The Germans have made their own bed, and now they need to sleep in it.

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-nurem-laws.htm

[middy]

Don't Tread on Me, had we remained neutral in WWII, we would now be looking at a Nazi and/or Soviet dominated Europe equipped with nuclear weapons.

I'm sorry, but isolationism became obsolete with the advent of nuclear tipped ICBMs.

[Crosshair]

OK, they should have goten over the whole NAZI thing by now. I say it is time for them to loosen up a bit.

[c_yeager]

Don't Tread on Me, had we remained neutral in WWII, we would now be looking at a Nazi and/or Soviet dominated Europe equipped with nuclear weapons.

Coulda sworn that we spend a couple of decades doing exactly that despite our lack of neutrality.

[Don't Tread On Me]

Don't Tread on Me, had we remained neutral in WWII, we would now be looking at a Nazi and/or Soviet dominated Europe equipped with nuclear weapons.

I'm sorry, but isolationism became obsolete with the advent of nuclear tipped ICBMs.



Guess what, there wouldn't be a WWII, a Nazi party, Hitler, or any of that nonsense had WWI been left up to the Europeans to deal with. That war would have ended in stalemate and terms would have been made that better suited Germany. The terms handed to them due to their defeat , BECAUSE WE GOT INTO A TOTALLY UNECESSARY WAR, led to massive resentment and problems in Germany that set the stage for the rise of the Nazis.


Good job Wilson. What did we gain by entering WWI?

[lamazza]

Ah yes, seems we Libertarians were right once again. I guess following the doctrine of non-interventionism that our founders laid out was the best idea.


How many Americans died in 2 massive bloddy wars so that the Europeans can remain anti-liberty socialist/fascists?


The only people worth dying for, is ourselves. Only we are worth it. American men only have a duty to their God, family, selves, then nation -- not some other nations.


Sorry, not trying to hijack. I don't think this particular case is any worse than the anti-holocaust denial laws they have over there. You have to wonder how much of this pressure to "kiss and make up" stuff is imposed on them by certain influences. That is tyranny of the highest level. Oh well. I'm not worried. I'm worried about this sort of thing coming to our shores someday.


Bravo +1

[CAS700850]

I just want to know when it became illegal to insult someone. I mean, it used to be a sport back in teh days when I was in school. Why now as an adult can I not do so, even unintentionally?

[HankB]

The story said that he was convicted by "A German court . . . "

I'm not familiar with the German legal system - did the accused have a right to a trial by jury? Did he exercise that right? Was he convicted by a jury of his peers? Or was it just a judge that convicted him in a kangaroo-court sham trial?

Did they even go through the motions of an actual trial at all? :confused:

[Duncaninfrance]

Which FREE world is that then?
Might be a good idea if some of you guys looked in the mirror now and again.
Seems to me that there is prejudice everywhere. KKK, The Mob, Your own Native Americans.
I seem to think that you arrived in WW1 after the Lucitania was sunk and that was a long time after we told the Germans and Austrians they couldn't kick neutral Belgium about. You then made the rules in 1918/19 as has been mentioned. WW2, well the same again I think. We stood up to the Germans again, over poland as I remember and wasn't it Japan who forced you in? I agree that lease/lend was vital but we stood alone for some time.
We don't want a Europe with these kind of problems ever again, it took decades to repair the damage to people and buildings.

Since then we appear to have been involved with you in some war or another and at the present moment we are TOGETHER in Iraq and Afganistan.
Current problems are partly because the Arab factions that are today classed as countries are nothing of the sort. They are mixtures of different faith tribes who have always fought each other and do not want to understand democracy let alone practice it. Untill you take the gun away from them they will continue to be as unpredictable and untrustworth as they are now.
Cut off their supply of weapons and they will cool down a bit.
The only reason we pay them lip service is OIL - not a desire to give them free speech. As George B if I am right about the oil?

I suppose this will be pulled like my last rant!!
Oh well, back to the wine.
Duncan

[Art Eatman]

Stick with comparing laws and judicial systems and this thread can remain open. Otherwise...

:), Art

[GoRon]

Which FREE world is that then?
Might be a good idea if some of you guys looked in the mirror now and again.
Seems to me that there is prejudice everywhere. KKK, The Mob, Your own Native Americans.

The KKK can say whatever stupid things they want and will not get in trouble. If they deface property or hurt someone they will get punished. Actually I don't know why they even get any press. How many KKK are there even in the country? Are there even 10,000 members, I doubt it. They are an ugly part of the past as is the mistreatment of American Indians over 150 years ago.

I don't understand the reference to the mob. They are glorified in the US. They shouldn't be, they are low lifes feeding the misery of the weak.

We over here are just touchy about free speech. The recent trend in liberal/progressive/democratic circles to adopt more European views toward "hate speech" is a step backward from freedom.

Ideas should stand and fall on their merits. We don't need a bunch of bureaucrats to legislate what we can say. Using the threat of government violence to keep you from voicing your opinion is anything but freedom.

[Mk VII]

It's a criminal offence in Germany to give the Party salute, to display the swastika in any form or to deny that the Jews were killed.
Most of these laws were devised with the enthusiastic support of the British & American occupiers when the Federal Republic was set up in 1949 to stop them getting another Hitler, no matter how much popular support he might gather from the electors. With U.S. type constitutional protections of free speech there would have been no bar to setting up another Nazi party, advocating Nazi policies, and going around wearing swastikas. As it turned out, the German people had no appetite for a revival of Nazism and the fears often expressed at the time of a Nazi revival were largely groundless. But they were real and the example of 1919 when the Germans felt themselves hard done by and convinced themselves they had not been defeated but stabbed in the back was one the Allies went to considerable pains not to allow to repeat.
Austria has similar laws as the price of being allowed back into the community of nations. Neo-Nazism has rather more support in Austria than Germany and just tolerating it isn’t going to make it go away.
They don’t have jury trials in most of continental Europe, most of which looks to Roman law and the Code Napoleon as the basis of its jurisprudence. The jury is an institution peculiar to English jurisprudence, and the American jurisprudence which derived from it. If the Dutch or German colonists had prevailed no doubt you wouldn’t have it either.

[HankB]

They don’t have jury trials in most of continental Europe, . . .If this was a response to my earlier (serious) question about the German legal system, if accurate, it would seem that the man was sent to jail after a sham trial in a kangaroo court.

Again, I simply don't know how Germany's legal system works, and would like to be educated by someone "in the know."

[Mk VII]

This distinctly Americocentric view of the universe seems to imply that justice cannot be obtained save from the Anglo-American jury trial system. Not every jurisprudence thinks that a battle between your lawyer and the prosecution's lawyer to see who is the better lawyer at persuading twelve people who'd rather be somewhere else is the best way to discover the truth.

from http://www.howtogermany.com/pages/legal.html

The first phase of a German criminal prosecution is pre-trial investigation to determine if there are grounds for a formal indictment. If a prosecutor determines that there is, the case is transferred to the appropriate German court, where the presiding judge decides if the evidence warrants a trial. This contrasts markedly from the US, where a judge will have little or no knowledge of the facts of a case until evidence has been introduced in the courtroom.

German law requires a prompt and speedy trial, though at least one week must pass between the time of the official notification of the charges and the date of the trial. The defense counsel may make a postponement motion, for example, if more time is needed to prepare the case. The trial will be open to the public unless this is specifically excluded because of public order, public morals or national security. Also, the public is automatically excluded if the accused is a minor.

There is no such thing as a jury trial in Germany, though court procedures are otherwise similar to those in the US, Under German law, as under American law, the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty. In minor cases there may be only a single judge presiding. Or, if the charges are severe and the accused faces heavy penalties, there may be five persons hearing the case - three professional judges and two lay judges.

Formal pleas of "guilty" or "not guilty" do not exist in German trials. An accused party can't plead guilty in order to receive a lesser punishment. Hearsay evidence and, under certain conditions, depositions of absent witnesses can be admitted as evidence in a German court. The attendance of witnesses and the production of evidence can be compelled.

It is wise to have a German defense counsel unless a case is very minor or the charges are undisputed. The right of the accused to be represented by counsel is carefully protected under German law. In some cases when the accused is charged with an offense punishable by a year or more of confinement, German law mandates the provision of counsel even if the accused doesn't wish it.

Attorney fees in low- to mid-level offenses may be roughly between €750 and €1,000. However, they can be significantly higher if the trial takes more than a day, or if representation is by an attorney of high repute. There are also court costs which can be quite high if the case is complex. If the accused in criminal cases is acquitted, the court generally pays the attorney's fees.

Though he has the duty of defending the accused to the maximum of his ability, a German lawyer is not as active in court as an American lawyer. In a German trial, the judge, not the defense counsel or the prosecutor, obtains the testimony of the witnesses. After the judge is finished, the prosecutor and the defense counsel will be permitted to question witnesses. The aim is to obtain the truth from witnesses by direct questioning rather than through the examination and cross-examination generally used in a US trial.

[Pilgrim]

They don’t have jury trials in most of continental Europe, most of which looks to Roman law and the Code Napoleon as the basis of its jurisprudence. The jury is an institution peculiar to English jurisprudence, and the American jurisprudence which derived from it. If the Dutch or German colonists had prevailed no doubt you wouldn’t have it either.

This distinctly Americocentric view of the universe seems to imply that justice cannot be obtained save from the Anglo-American jury trial system. Not every jurisprudence thinks that a battle between your lawyer and the prosecution's lawyer to see who is the better lawyer at persuading twelve people who'd rather be somewhere else is the best way to discover the truth.
The Anglo-American jury trial system would have decided if Manfred van H.'s actions were political or criminal in nature, and if the law he is being prosecuted under has been perverted to satisfy the policy needs of a government far removed from the will of the people.

Pilgrim

[CAnnoneer]

+1 Don't Tread on Me
+1 GoRon

W. Wilson is the quintessential leftist - a globalist full of lofty impractical ideals and devoid of national interest or common sense. He has a lot to answer for.

As far as JFK, he was anything but neutral even before Pearl Harbor. Is leaving two thirds of Europe under Soviet dictatorship, the other third demolished in six years of war, and 40 years of Cold War preferrable to a Nazi-run Central Europe? It is known that the Nazi economic machine could not sustain itself for nearly as long as the Soviets did. They would have collapsed within 10-15 years.

[Stand_Watie]

This distinctly Americocentric view of the universe seems to imply that justice cannot be obtained save from the Anglo-American jury trial system.

Amerocentric? Anglocentric maybe.

[ceetee]

The Anglo-American jury trial system would have decided if Manfred van H.'s actions were political or criminal in nature, and if the law he is being prosecuted under has been perverted to satisfy the policy needs of a government far removed from the will of the people.

Unless Manfred was a rich man, or a pauper.

If Manfred was rich, his highly-paid "dream team" would've played every card in the deck to ensure acquittal.

If broke, Manfred would have surely plead guilty to a lesser offense, been given probation, and set free, whereupon he would've been unable to pay for his probation, and been sent to prison for "violation of probation."

[telomerase]

Don't Tread on Me, had we remained neutral in WWII, we would now be looking at a Nazi and/or Soviet dominated Europe equipped with nuclear weapons.

We DID face a Europe mostly dominated by Soviets, and China too, both due to our intervention. The fact that our over 200 billion in "loans" to the Soviet bloc wasn't enough to keep the Communists in power doesn't mean that intervening more would have made things better.

You have to remember that everything the US government "does", it does by destroying more US private wealth. Yes, the Nazis might have occupied France a little longer, but the US would now own Mars and the Belt... instead of becoming a pathetic "crusader state" run by C-student Yale fraternity boys.

And the statements made by previous posters about our intervention in WWI shaping WWII are of course correct. "Democracy- The God That Failed" by Hoppe makes some good points about this.

[Mk VII]

is leaving two thirds of Europe under Soviet dictatorship, the other third demolished in six years of war, and 40 years of Cold War preferrable to a Nazi-run Central Europe? It is known that the Nazi economic machine could not sustain itself for nearly as long as the Soviets did. They would have collapsed within 10-15 years.

But that would have been plenty long enough for them to finish exterminating the Jews. Maybe some people round here would have been happier with that.:fire: