miseshayek
Active member
- Messages
- 35
- Reaction score
- 5
The right to satirise is not the right to injure or humiliate
Brussels - 5-Feb-06
The Conference of European Rabbis expresses its concern at recent publications by European press organs which humiliate and disparage the feelings of Muslims.
"I share the anger of Muslims at these cartoons and I understand it," CER President and Chief Rabbi of France Joseph Sitruk said.
Rabbi Sitruk said that the publication of cartoons depicting the Muslim Prophet Mohammed by the Danish daily, Jyllands-Posten, and their subsequent publication by other European press organs, showed "a lack of intellectual honesty and a deep lack of respect for the feelings of others."
"We gain nothing by disparaging religions, by humiliating people and by making caricatures of religious symbols. But even these actions must never be allowed to justify a response which is completely out of proportion to understandable feelings of anger. Nothing in our shared monotheist traditions can justify violence and blind hatred," Rabbi Sitruk added.
The CER president pointed out that the increasing tendency of a lack of respect towards religion was not confined to the West.
"Jews are all too familiar with caricatures of hate which appear with increasing regularity today particularly in the Middle East. Such forms of what is wrongly called freedom of expression are unacceptable whether in Syria or in Denmark," Rabbi Sitruk said.
"Everyone has the right to think whatever he wishes, but the right to express and the right to satire do not confer the right to humiliate and to injure," he added.
The Conference of European Rabbis federates Jewish religious leaders in over 40 countries and includes all the continent’s chief rabbis and senior rabbinical judges. The CER holds consultancy status at the Council of Europe and within the institutions of the European Union. ENDS
For further information, please contact:-
Philip Carmel
International Relations Director
Conference of European Rabbis
tel: +32-2-340-9628
fax: +32-2-344-6735
gsm: +32-495-277-947
email: [email protected]
http://www.cer-online.org/en/DisplayRelease.asp?ID=35
Brussels - 5-Feb-06
The Conference of European Rabbis expresses its concern at recent publications by European press organs which humiliate and disparage the feelings of Muslims.
"I share the anger of Muslims at these cartoons and I understand it," CER President and Chief Rabbi of France Joseph Sitruk said.
Rabbi Sitruk said that the publication of cartoons depicting the Muslim Prophet Mohammed by the Danish daily, Jyllands-Posten, and their subsequent publication by other European press organs, showed "a lack of intellectual honesty and a deep lack of respect for the feelings of others."
"We gain nothing by disparaging religions, by humiliating people and by making caricatures of religious symbols. But even these actions must never be allowed to justify a response which is completely out of proportion to understandable feelings of anger. Nothing in our shared monotheist traditions can justify violence and blind hatred," Rabbi Sitruk added.
The CER president pointed out that the increasing tendency of a lack of respect towards religion was not confined to the West.
"Jews are all too familiar with caricatures of hate which appear with increasing regularity today particularly in the Middle East. Such forms of what is wrongly called freedom of expression are unacceptable whether in Syria or in Denmark," Rabbi Sitruk said.
"Everyone has the right to think whatever he wishes, but the right to express and the right to satire do not confer the right to humiliate and to injure," he added.
The Conference of European Rabbis federates Jewish religious leaders in over 40 countries and includes all the continent’s chief rabbis and senior rabbinical judges. The CER holds consultancy status at the Council of Europe and within the institutions of the European Union. ENDS
For further information, please contact:-
Philip Carmel
International Relations Director
Conference of European Rabbis
tel: +32-2-340-9628
fax: +32-2-344-6735
gsm: +32-495-277-947
email: [email protected]
http://www.cer-online.org/en/DisplayRelease.asp?ID=35
