Hundreds of intellectuals and artists are concerned about its implications for freedom of expression, while police, lawyers, and prosecutors consider it too imprecise.
I do not approve of burning holy books, but I think it should be legal.
What people shouldn’t do and what should be banned are different things. I don’t want to live in a place where what is not mandatory is banned. There has to be some room for freedom of expression, even for people expressing ideas we dislike.
I do not approve of burning books, full stop. I couldn’t care less whose imaginary friend the book is or isn’t about.
But I completely agree that the government should categorically not be legislating which books you can and cannot burn. Burning a book is a form of free speech. It’s often offensive to many people, but it’s still important - if for no other reason than it lets the people doing the burning show their true colors.
There has to be some room for freedom of expression, even for people expressing ideas we dislike.
And there still is plenty of room of public expression of opinions without burning a book representing a religious group. Seriously there are thousands of ways to do so.
But European countries did learn some lessons and that’s why some actions such as calling for religious or other minority groups to be killed or to intimindate such groups with displays of violence isn’t allowed in many of them. And burning a religious book in public is such an act of intimidation which serves absolutely no constructive purpose. That’s why many European countries don’t allow such behaviour.
You act like there would be less of a reaction if people ripped up, walked on, or in other ways desecrated the Quran. This isn’t about book burning, this is about a group of people not tolerating that on of their symbols is desecrated.
Imagine if we prosecuted people for burning flags or signs with slogans… but maybe you think that should be illegal as well?
I do not approve of burning holy books, but I think it should be legal.
What people shouldn’t do and what should be banned are different things. I don’t want to live in a place where what is not mandatory is banned. There has to be some room for freedom of expression, even for people expressing ideas we dislike.
I do not approve of burning books, full stop. I couldn’t care less whose imaginary friend the book is or isn’t about.
But I completely agree that the government should categorically not be legislating which books you can and cannot burn. Burning a book is a form of free speech. It’s often offensive to many people, but it’s still important - if for no other reason than it lets the people doing the burning show their true colors.
Exactly. People can burn anything they want in their backyard. Just keep out of public spaces
That’s absolutely not what I am saying.
And there still is plenty of room of public expression of opinions without burning a book representing a religious group. Seriously there are thousands of ways to do so.
But European countries did learn some lessons and that’s why some actions such as calling for religious or other minority groups to be killed or to intimindate such groups with displays of violence isn’t allowed in many of them. And burning a religious book in public is such an act of intimidation which serves absolutely no constructive purpose. That’s why many European countries don’t allow such behaviour.
You act like there would be less of a reaction if people ripped up, walked on, or in other ways desecrated the Quran. This isn’t about book burning, this is about a group of people not tolerating that on of their symbols is desecrated.
Imagine if we prosecuted people for burning flags or signs with slogans… but maybe you think that should be illegal as well?