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Post by lagatta on Sept 1, 2020 22:11:39 GMT
Yes, I remember the story of that guy. And I suppose the new Tribunal will be more equipped for high-security trials such as that one.
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Post by bjd on Sept 25, 2020 14:59:13 GMT
There was a knife attack today on some journalists just outside the building where Charlie Hebdo used to have their offices. The attackers were caught -- now the police have to figure out why. The journalists' lives are not in danger. Must be traumatizing for those in the neighbourhood to see police, ambulances, locked down schools in the area again.
Adding that it was an 18 year-old with a meat cleaver.
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Post by whatagain on Sept 25, 2020 18:16:05 GMT
18 year-old from Pakistan claiming not capable of speaking French.
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Post by bjd on Sept 26, 2020 11:08:08 GMT
18 year-old from Pakistan claiming not capable of speaking French. So obviously he couldn't read Charlie Hebdo and get offended.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 26, 2020 11:58:06 GMT
He looked at the pictures.
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Post by tod2 on Oct 18, 2020 12:34:16 GMT
We watched the news as it evolved around Rerpublique where crowds were gathering. Will we ever get rid of fanatics in our societies.? At 18yrs old his parents are either just as nuts or they don't know him very well. Another thought came to me and that was a pupil in the teachers class must have also been a radicle Muslim to run home and tell her family what had transpired in class.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 18, 2020 14:01:14 GMT
I'll post a few photos shortly, having just returned from Place de la République.
The police announced in advance that they would not be enforcing the 5000 max rule for outdoor gatherings today. Everybody was wearing masks. (Actually the crowd is still there, but I left early because I am old.)
My mother was a teacher.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 18, 2020 15:22:36 GMT
I've been to countless demonstrations at République and they all look the same, I know. But this is the first masked demonstration that I have attended, so it might give a slightly different look to the affair.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 18, 2020 15:26:42 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 18, 2020 15:35:04 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 18, 2020 16:30:17 GMT
Wow, that is really impressive. The very sedateness of it makes it powerful.
Was the clapping prompted by something in particular, or just a statement of being present?
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Post by lugg on Oct 18, 2020 17:48:54 GMT
Poignant photos and videos indeed.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 18, 2020 18:10:58 GMT
Was the clapping prompted by something in particular The first clapping took place at exactly 15:00 which was the official starting time for the gathering, but clapping happened several more times, spreading in waves across the crowd since it was spontaneous.
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Post by Biddy on Oct 18, 2020 20:34:43 GMT
Thank you Kerouac2- for posting these pictures. We have learned very little about Samuel - how awful for his family and colleagues. I hope this does not energize the Marine Le Pen supporters.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 18, 2020 21:32:32 GMT
If it does, his family and friends will respond. There is absolutely no indication that Samuel was a Le Pen supporter, on the contrary. He advised all his Muslim pupils that they could go home or stay outside if the converation upset or offended them.
By the way, the young terrorist was a Chechen, born in Moscow, not a Pakistani. And there was a female classmate deeply involved in this crime.
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Post by Biddy on Oct 18, 2020 22:40:20 GMT
Lagatta - I did not in any way shape or form imply that Samuel was a Le Pen supporter. What I was referring to was that the horrific act could whip up anti-Muslim feeling which I am sure Le Pen supporters could exploit.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 19, 2020 0:39:43 GMT
Yes, that is entirely possible. However I'm sure that people who knew him will have a stern response.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 19, 2020 3:56:16 GMT
By the way, the young terrorist was a Chechen, born in Moscow, not a Pakistani The reference to Pakistan was about a different attack.
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Post by whatagain on Oct 19, 2020 9:39:29 GMT
I would not call it a terrorist attack. For me terrorism inplies a goal a pattern and an organisation. Here we have a crime. Done by an asshole for all the wrong reasons, and draping himself in the shrouds of the Koran. It is time to go down more harshly on hate speaches, and Imans or morons not denouncing such crimes should be punished. Btw, i heard on the radio that social media posters stupid enough to post support of this hate crime will be wanted, found and prosecuted. Time to go after these assholes spreading hate in social media too, under cover of free speech.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Oct 19, 2020 14:14:34 GMT
Horrific. Thank you for the photos Kerouac, civilised protest. So very sad that some think that they have a right, or even a duty to kill another person just because they hold views different to their own. It's monstrous.
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Post by fumobici on Oct 19, 2020 15:22:59 GMT
This won't be a popular opinion but I'm not sure allowing highly orthodox or fundamentalist (of any religion) individuals to immigrate into a secular country like France is a bright idea. It's just begging for trouble nobody needs and I'm sure there are plenty of potential immigrants who don't suffer from that particular type of dangerous mental illness, and I'd expect most of these fundis would be happier (albeit poorer) remaining in their places of origin where they can suffer/enjoy their profound mental illness in the supportive company of millions of others similarly afflicted.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 19, 2020 15:39:34 GMT
Ah, but we don't know yet what the parents are like. They were accepted as refugees 10 years ago when the guy was only 8 years old. So his formative years have been spent in France -- on the internet of course. I don't think we have found the antidote to that yet unless we feel that much more censorship should be applied to the internet, starting with Facebook, Instagram and Twitter...
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Post by lagatta on Oct 19, 2020 18:04:10 GMT
fumobici, I agree with your sentiment, but don't know how to enact it without violating certain civil rights. I have (normal) Jewish friends in the 19th arrondissement, and the overbearing influence of the ultraorthodox annoys them to no end. Not to mention the so-called "traditional Catholics" who favour the virtual enslavement of women and the persecution of LGBT+ people, though I fear that most are native-born French. Many of those were collaborators during the War.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 20, 2020 16:30:38 GMT
French imam of Drancy expresses solidarity with teacher, hatred of violent Islamism.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 21, 2020 7:12:15 GMT
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Oct 29, 2020 19:08:07 GMT
Part of an email I received from Humanists UK
"We must never blame the victims
This morning, three civilians were murdered in France – stabbed to death and beheaded – by an Islamic extremist. It was a shocking and despicable act, but not an isolated one. It comes just a fortnight after state school teacher Samuel Paty was murdered for teaching his class about freedom of expression and the attacks on Charlie Hebdo. France responded then in the only way a human rights-loving republic should. It defended the right to free expression, including to publish materials which may cause offence.
Sickeningly, today’s murders have been portrayed as a retaliation for that defence of free speech and secular education and it feels like this is a situation spiralling out of control. If it does, we must remember that there is fault only on one side here. Freedom of speech and freedom of belief are not crimes. But murder most definitely is.
Feelings of offence can never justify violence just as, on their own, they can never justify censorship. Attempts to draw any kind of moral equivalence between drawing cartoons or defending artistic freedom on the one hand, and violent murder and decapitation on the other, are disgusting.
They are also, in many cases, disingenuous. The heads of government in Turkey and Pakistan have thrown their full diplomatic weight against France and behind the killers in calling for the Republic to take action against ‘Islamophobia’, by which they mean not discrimination and prejudice, but the non-crime of offending religious sentiment.
This is not a new tune. At the UN, Pakistan has repeatedly attempted to lodge motions for global blasphemy laws in these precise terms – opposed strenuously by humanists. They are taking advantage of murder and violence to bang the same drum as always. But this time the pressing of their censorious argument represents victim-blaming on an international scale. There should be no ‘but’ after a statement that says ‘We do not support murder.’
In any case, we have no reason to believe those who say that laws against offending religions will stop the violence. Countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Bangladesh are home to this kind of violence all year round, precisely because blasphemy laws give legitimacy to any vigilante targeting humanists, Christians, Ahmadis, or other minorities, safe in the knowledge that enough people believe violence is an acceptable response to those who offend you to offer them impunity.
The path to outlawing ‘offence’ is a path to even greater bloodshed and misery, accompanied by the erosion of our freedom to speak truth to power and a diminishing of the colour and diversity of human culture and human life.
What, then, are we left with? Blood on the pavements. Families shattered. Lives knocked off course and lives that will never be the same again. The real human cost of murder is often forgotten when events take on national and international significance. But it is the victims of these attacks who I most wish to centre in our minds right now. Their lives. Their humanity. Their hopes, potential, and dreams.
Tragedies like today’s remind us of just how small and brief and fragile life is. Life is brief. That’s why taking it through murder is the most hideous crime of all. In this brief life therefore, what else can we do but try our best to enjoy the time we have, and cherish it, however we can? For us as humanists that must include taking action to improve life for others, including the future generations we hope will live in freedom and peace. Taking action for that brighter future is the best answer to all those who only deal in death and have nothing to offer but the silence of fear and misery.
So what do we do when challenged by such inhumanity and barbarity – and increasingly by maddening attempts by others whom we love, respect, or otherwise know, to justify it?
Here we must practice what we preach: responding with our words. With facts. With argument. And then listening, and responding in turn. Our aim here isn’t to point-score – life isn’t a YouTube debate – but to change minds and attitudes. Because something very important rests on doing so: the future of a liberal, freedom-loving world order.
It is incumbent on all of us to speak up for our most cherished rights: freedom of thought, freedom of expression… the right to life itself. That means we must all speak up against victim-blaming when we see it. It may mean challenging friends who indulge in these sorts of false equivalencies. It may mean lodging complaints when journalists take the lazy option of presenting 'both sides' as at fault: crazed murderers and the leaders of semi-theocracies, and the leaders, citizens, and school teachers of republics premised on the rule of law and human rights. That is what we can do today and from here on in response to what happened today.
In solidarity,
Andrew Copson Chief Executive
Statement on attacks in France: We must never blame the victims"
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 29, 2020 19:15:47 GMT
Without pressing the matter, since they are our friends, many French politicians have regretted the lack of overt support from the other European countries. Nobody wants to become a target, but is it better to become a wimp?
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Oct 29, 2020 20:00:25 GMT
I think that it's important that we support France. I wouldn't condone offending another individual's beliefs but at the same time murder is inexcusable. The reaction of the Turkish leader was chilling.
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Post by lugg on Oct 29, 2020 20:07:58 GMT
I think that it's important that we support France Absolutely agree.
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Post by Biddy on Oct 30, 2020 23:56:58 GMT
Another awful attack - it's incomprehensible.
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