Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008
I’m in Goteborg, Sweden, for the annual World Association of Newspapers congress. I spoke on a panel on Sunday on freedom of expression and the right to offend.
I’m a fan of offending everyone and will never support censorship for the sake of preventing offense. I’ll expand on that once I’m back home but for starters here are some thoughts:
For further proof that dictators in the Muslim world fight their liberal opponents more than those of the Islamist type, look no further than Ali Dilem, the Algerian cartoonist and a fellow panelist on freedom of expression and the right to offend. He faces 50 court cases for his stinging political caricatures. That’s compared to just two faced by one of Algeria’s senior radical Islamists.
And for those wondering about where Islamists stand on women and their right to political participation, Kuwait has the answer. Islamist members of parliament there walked out of the body’s inaugural meeting on Sunday to protest two female Cabinet ministers who were not wearing headscarves.
More to come soon…
Comments (6)
Dale said:
There are more women than men in the world. Right to vote=djini out of the bottle. Its only a matter of time. Unfortunately, women are as evil as men, perhaps more so, so it really won’t solve any problems.
June 4th, 2008, 10:16 am
Solomon2 said:
Are you angry because your roundtable didn’t go well? I look forward to reading more.
June 4th, 2008, 1:05 pm
Mona Eltahawy said:
The roundtable went very well, thank you!
June 4th, 2008, 8:43 pm
abdo said:
O’ Syrian Sunnis you must rise up immediately in order to destroy the alawite bastard dog son of the alawite bastard dog and the alawite bastard slut and worse yet the brother of the alawite bastard slut. O’ Syrian Sunnis the recent news of alawite dog eating alawite dog was a source of great pleasure to us. It confirms our predictions that the time has come for you to rise up and to eliminate the alawite bastard dog son of the alawite bastard dog and the alawite bastard slut and worse yet the brother of the alawite bastard slut. O’ Syrian Sunnis it is a great shame on you to continue to live under the rule of the alawite bastard dog son of the alawite bastard dog and the alawite bastard slut and worse yet the brother of the alawite bastard slut. O’ Syrian Sunnis seek military help and training from your Sunni brothers in Jordan, Saudi, the Gulf, Egypt, Turkey and particularly from your Sunni brothers in Iraq and the West Bank. O’ Syrian Sunnis your Iarqi Sunni brothers have suffered tremendously from all the terrorists that were sent to Iraq by the alawite bastard dog son of the alawite bastard dog and the alawite bastard slut and worse yet the brother of the alawite bastard slut. They are thus very eager to help you in your effort of destroying the alawite bastard dog son of the alawite bastard dog and the alawite bastard slut and worse yet the brother of the alawite bastard slut. O’ Syrian Sunnis you have to do what you have to do. O’ Syrian Sunnis RISE up NOW and destroy the alawite bastard dog son of the alawite bastard dog and the alawite bastard slut and worse yet the brother of the alawite bastard slut.
June 15th, 2008, 10:14 am
Dale said:
abdo:
Is this one of those things that’s supposed to make you go “hmmm”?
June 15th, 2008, 6:16 pm
Mona Eltahawy said:
Abdo
Perhaps you’d like to tell us how you really feel without so much repetition?
And if you want to engate the Syrians who visit my blog, it would probably help if you stopped using words like “bastard” and “slut”.
June 15th, 2008, 6:25 pm
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