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Does Free Speech Exist in Italy?

Tony

Penultimate Amazing
Tony
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Mar 5, 2003
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/25/AR2005052500470_pf.html ...full article

ROME (Reuters) - A judge has ordered best-selling writer and journalist Oriana Fallaci to stand trial in her native Italy on charges she defamed Islam in a recent book.

The decision angered Italy's justice minister but delighted Muslim activists, who accused Fallaci of inciting religious hatred in her 2004 work "La Forza della Ragione" (The Force of Reason).

Fallaci lives in New York and has regularly provoked the wrath of Muslims with her outspoken criticism of Islam following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities.

In "La Forza della Ragione," Fallaci wrote that terrorists had killed 6,000 people over the past 20 years in the name of the Koran and said the Islamic faith "sows hatred in the place of love and slavery in the place of freedom."

State prosecutors originally dismissed accusations of defamation from an Italian Muslim organization, and said Fallaci should not stand trial because she was merely exercising her right to freedom of speech.
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What other things are Italians forbidden from criticizing? Communism? Christianity? Buddhism? Nazism? It seems silly that someone can be brought to trial for "defaming" a religion. This almost seems like a modern day version of heresy.
 
Cleon said:
Pretty common in Europe, actually. "Inciting hatred" and all that. Canada has similar laws.
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Then why didn't they just ban the book?
 
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