The latest issues of Charlie Hebdo has been printed at 3 million copies (some sources said 5 million). They go on ebay for up to 300 Euros. RT reports that “Sunni Islam’s most renowned center of learning, Al-Azhar in Cairo, said that the cartoons “stir up hatred” and “do not serve the peaceful coexistence between peoples.” Tabnak, a conservative online outlet in Iran, wrote that “Charlie Hebdo has again insulted the Prophet.”
French comedian Dieudonne was arrested for “apology for terrorism”. He had tweeted “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly” (combining Charlie and the last name of one of the terrorists involved in the attacks. Millions will not take to the streets to protect his freedom of speech. They are Charlie, but they are not Dieudonne.
A source of mine with links to French police services has told me that the French Ministry of Internal Affairs had created a hotline to report terrorist. About 50% of the messages they got were “Allahu Akbar!”.
Another of my sources in Europe tells me that the European Commission will meet to decide if the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics will be declared “terrorist organizations” following the bombing of a bus filled with civilians in the Ukraine. Apparently, the bus exploded out of reach of Novorussian artillery and probably on a landmine.
One more thing. Dmitri Orlov has written an absolutely fantastic piece entitled “Peculiarities of Russian National Character” every word of which I fully subscribe to and which I highly recommend to everybody.
The Saker
In France free speech is the right to say what the state permits you to say.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/14/days-hosting-massive-free-speech-march-france-arrests-comedian-facebook-comments/
#IAmCharlie
#IAmDieudonné
Joat said…@ 14 January, 2015 19:53
“There is no anonymity,safety or security on the internet”
If you stop thinking linearly that is an opportunity.
Remember GIGO and the STASI.
I very much enjoyed the Orlov piece. A collegue in Moscow also enjoyed it, but sent along a few caveats, viz.:
” Dmitry Orlov is right in very essence in his description of Russian national character, but I have two comments.
First, I cannot agree that “Russia is always wiling to retreat” in military conflicts. Russian army retreated deeply only twice, when Napoleon and Hitler invaded Russia. In both cases deep retreats occurred basically because it was hard to resist to the military power of all Europe, not only of France and Germany. As a counterexample, the WW1 was conducted by Russia merely on foreign territories, except for eastern Poland that was part of the Russian Empire. Most other wars of Russia in 18-19 centuries took place on foreign territories. These wars were in many cases motivated by the allied commitments to various European states rather than by aggressive goals.
Second, I agree that “to send an offender to hell” instead of fighting him is a feature of Russian psychology. As king David says in one of his psalms: “Avoid evil and create good.” By the way, the Book of Psalms was traditionally a sort of a basic textbook for Russians. But to say “Pshel” is, literally, a style of vulgar people. Russian diplomacy never behaved this way, although it lost in many diplomatic games in the past because it lacked enough hypocrisy, which was (and still is) a salient feature of the Western diplomacy.
In all other aspects I like this article.”
Katherine
Nice Katherine !! Good to hear a point of view from your Russian colleague