Saturday, October 29, 2011

Towards a “Responsible” Freedom of Speech in Europe

OSCE logoAs we reported last night, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff represented Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa yesterday at an OSCE meeting in Vienna. The Austrian news paper Der Standard reported on the event yesterday evening in the following article.

Many thanks to JLH for the translation.

Congress in Vienna

European Muslims Demand Guidelines Against Islamophobia

“Freedom of speech in Europe entails responsibility”

Vienna — The initiative of European Muslims for Social Solidarity is demanding guidelines against Islamophobia in public discourse. Freedom of speech in Europe implies responsibility, which is often forgotten by political leaders and journalists, said General Secretary Bashy Quraishy on Friday in Vienna at a congress of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europa (OSCE).

Islamophobia has established itself in public discourse in Western society, lamented participants of the congress against discrimination and intolerance against Muslims. “From prejudices, we have advanced to an institutional racism in which any visible sign of Islamic faith is perceived as a threat,” said Ermine Bozkurt, Socialist representative in the European parliament.

Muslims do not want special treatment, but the same protection that has existed for a long time against homophobia and anti-Semitism, opined Quraishy.

Criticism of the congress came from Citizens’ Organization Pax Europa (Bürgervereinigung Pax Europa [sic, should be Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa]). There was, said delegation leader Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, no reason for special treatment of Muslims, since they had the same rights as all others anyway.

Earlier this year, the OSCE had already discussed anti-Semitism and crimes against Christians.


Previous posts about the OSCE and the Counterjihad:

2009 Jul 25 A Report on the OSCE Roundtable
  Sep 30 ICLA Tackles Fundamental Freedoms at the OSCE Meeting in Warsaw
  Oct 1 The ICLA Meets the OSCE, Round 2
  Nov 5 The OSCE: Islam and Violence Against Women
    7 Proposed Charter of Muslim Understanding Under Fire At OSCE Meeting in Vienna
    7 “Hate Speech” Accusations at the OSCE Meeting
    8 What is Medica Zenica?
    10 Report on the OSCE Supplementary Human Rights Dimension Meeting
2011 Oct 28 ESW: Liveblogging In Vienna
    28 Steering Public Discourse
    28 Fallacies That Deserve Correction

1 comment:

Blogger said...

St. Augustine said "do not to judge a philosophy by its abuses". This goes for Christianity, Islam and the anti-Islam movement. Christianity and the anti-Islam movement at a philosophical movement do not call for violence. But Islam does.

Post a Comment

All comments are subject to pre-approval by blog admins.

Gates of Vienna's rules about comments require that they be civil, temperate, on-topic, and show decorum. For more information, click here.

Users are asked to limit each comment to about 500 words. If you need to say more, leave a link to your own blog.

Also: long or off-topic comments may be posted on news feed threads.

To add a link in a comment, use this format:
<a href="http://mywebsite.com">My Title</a>

Please do not paste long URLs!

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.