Saskatoon Muslims say religious insults are hate speech

A group of Saskatoon Muslims said insults to religion are not freedom of expression and should be considered hate speech.

Roughly 75 Muslims gathered outside Saskatoon City Hall on Sunday to protest the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s depictions of the Islam prophet Muhammad.
 
The new issue has a cartoon of Muhammad, with a tear running down his cheek and a sign that reads “Je Suis Charlie.” Followers of Islam consider depictions of their prophet insulting or even a sin.

The Saskatoon protest lasted approximately 45 minutes with members slowly filtering in following afternoon prayers. On one side of the gender divided protest, men held white signs reading “free speech has limits,” and men and women quietly sang prayers. 

Protest organizer Mustafa Mustaan said he welcomes intellectual debate, but insults against faith should not be part of free speech.
 
“Since when [did] it become a freedom to insult people? That’s what we are asking [and] we are protesting against,” Mustaan said. “That’s not freedom of expression to insult someone’s belief.”

Mustaan said the Saskatoon community also condemns the killing of the French cartoonists, however, the media has condemned the violent actions of Muslims extremists but not the images, which he sees as the root cause or provocation of the violence.
 
“The picture has caused violence and chaos because out of two billion people, there is someone who thinks of violence and they can do it and then the whole media focuses on that instead of focusing on why these things are happening because of provocations,” he said.

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He also criticized France for supporting Charlie Hebdo while punishing other journalists such as Paris Match editor-in-chief Alain Genestar. Genestar was ordered to quit after he published photos of French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy’s wife Cécilia and her lover in New York on the front page.
 
He said insults to faith are against freedom of religion and should be considered a hate crime by the global community.

“Those who are not Muslims, we respect their belief and if it’s our belief, you have to respect our belief,” he said. “That’s all we want. Nothing more, nothing less.”

In the former French African colony Niger, as many as 10 people were killed and dozens injured when protests boiled over and, and there were violent clashes between demonstrators and police in Pakistan, Jordan and Algeria.

news@panow.com 

On Twitter: @princealbertnow