Koran Burning

A French court has acquitted a blogger of a charge of provoking discrimination related to burning a copy of the Qur'an in an internet broadcast and urinating on the book.

The court in the north-eastern city of Strasbourg found that Ernesto Rojas Abbate had been acting within the boundaries of freedom of expression when he used the Qur'an as a prop in a simulation of the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks on New York.

Filming himself with a webcam on October 2, Abbate made a paper aircraft with pages from the Qur'an and launched it at two glasses representing the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre. He then burnt the aircraft and the book and urinated on them, to quench the flames .

The Mosque of Strasbourg and a local anti-racism organisation had pressed charges against the man. But the court ruled the video was aimed at terrorist acts and not the wider Muslim community, which could not be assimilated with the terrorist acts .

Update: ...BUT...

12th May 2011. See  article from  islamineurope.blogspot.com

The European Parliament has stripped parliamentary immunity from French far-right MEP Bruno Gollnisch, to enable a complaint of incitement to racial hatred to be investigated.

French authorities will now interview Gollnisch after asking for the move, following a complaint over an October 2008 press release issued by Rhone-Alpes regional authorities near Lyon, which Gollnisch led, that cited the invasion of our land and the destruction of our culture and values by Islam.

The International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism launched the complaint, and the European Parliament decided that, as the case related to Gollnisch's activities as a regional councillor, applying parliamentary immunity to such a situation 'would constitute an undue extension of those rules', a statement said.

A New Jersey Transit worker who was fired after burning pages of a Koran during a demonstration in Manhattan in September last year has been reinstated, reimbursed for lost wages and benefits, and awarded $25,000 in compensation for the pain and suffering caused by his dismissal.

The reinstatement of the worker was announced by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, which sued the transportation corporation on his behalf, arguing that his actions were protected by the First Amendment.

The reinstatement was part of a settlement agreement, filed this week in Federal District Court in Newark, in which the man dropped his suit in exchange for getting his job back.

In America, we have the right to burn all kinds of things --- letters, flags, books, Bibles and Korans, Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the New Jersey group, said.

Jacobs said the case should serve as a reminder to our leaders that they can't punish and censor political expression based on their own emotional reactions or sense of morality.

The man was fired two days after the demonstration, accused of violating New Jersey Transit's employee code of ethics by tearing pages from a copy of the Koran and igniting them with a cigarette lighter to protest plans for building a Muslim community center and mosque two blocks north of ground zero. He was participating in a protest staged by about 2,000 people near the proposed site of the center, 51 Park Place, during a day of memorial and prayer services marking the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says congressional lawmakers are discussing taking some action in response to the Koran burnings of a Tennessee pastor that led to killings at the U.N. facility in Afghanistan and sparked protests across the Middle East, Politico reports.

Ten to 20 people have been killed, Reid said Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation : We'll take a look at this of course. As to whether we need hearings or not, I don't know.

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Congress might need to explore the need to limit some forms of freedom of speech, in light of Tennessee pastor Terry Jones' Quran burning, and how such actions result in enabling U.S. enemies.

I wish we could find a way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war, Graham told CBS' Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation Sunday.

Seven men accused of burning a copy of the Koran in a Gateshead pub car park will face no further action.

The men were detained in September after a video appeared on the internet.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said there was not sufficient evidence for a realistic chance of conviction.

It said it had looked at a number of areas for possible prosecution but there was insufficient evidence.

The CPS said it could not identify who had recorded and posted the video online, there was no evidence threatening behaviour was used and there was no evidence anyone present was upset by what they saw.

A 15-year-old girl has been arrested on suspicion of inciting religious hatred after allegedly burning an English-language version of the Qur'an – and then posting video footage of the act on Facebook.

The teenager, from the Sandwell district of Birmingham, was filmed on her school premises burning the book. Police have confirmed the incident was reported to the school and the video has since been removed.

It is believed the girl was allegedly filmed setting the book alight while other pupils looked on. Two Facebook profiles have also been removed from the site.

It is understood that the group who published the version of the Qur'an that was set alight has visited the school to 'talk' to pupils.

Speaking about the latest incident in Birmingham, a spokesperson for West Midlands police said: A 15-year-old girl was arrested on Friday 19 November on suspicion of inciting religious hatred. She has been bailed pending further enquiries.

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing NJ Transit for firing an 11-year employee after he burned a Koran in a Ground Zero mosque protest in September, according to NJ.com.

On the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, then-NJ Transit employee Derek Fenton was photographed burning three pages of a Koran in front of the space where the proposed Ground Zero mosque will be built. Soon after, he was fired from NJ Transit for violating their 'ethics' codes.

The ACLU is saying that Fenton deserves his job back, as NJ Transit has infringed on his right to free speech, the website reports.

If you allow governments to censor one kind of speech, you open the door to censorship of all kinds of speech, Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the ACLU in New Jersey, told the site. Our individual right to free speech depends on everybody having it.

When the train line fired Fenton, it released a statement saying that, NJ Transit concluded that Mr. Fenton violated his trust as a state employee.