Yves Engler's arrest in Montreal has been labelled an 'attack' on free expression in Canada

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/26284554

By Syma Mohammed
Published date: 20 February 2025 21:44 GMT

Alex Tyrrell, party leader of the Green Party of Quebec, who accompanied Engler to the police station on Thursday, spoke to the Middle East Eye about Engler’s arrest.

“I think it’s a shocking attack on free expression and democratic rights and criticism of Israel in Canada - a country that’s supposed to be a free, democratic society. We’re supposed to speak out about a genocide," Tyrrel told MEE.

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      3 days ago

      The same way you objectively decide anything else in law. You apply the principles to the facts.

      Your first example there is a gimme; clear and obvious example of antisemitic hate speech. The fact that they’re protesting against Israeli genocide isn’t some magic shield that protects people from criticism. You can protest against the actions of Isreal without declaring that Hitler was right.

      The second one is a grey area. That’s the thing; when you take a serious approach to the problems of the world, instead of fleeing to the simplicity of ideas like free speech absolutism, which require no degree of complex thought, you will inevitably run into grey areas. So I’m not going to give a hard answer on this one because I think it would take a lot of serious thought and debate to come up with a hard answer on it. But I will say that even if it was ruled as intolerant speech, nothing would be lost. You can protest against Isreal and stand up for Palestine without needing to celebrate the actions of Hamas. Those things are not intrinsically linked. So your examples do not demonstrate any kind of underlying flaw with Popper’s principle. Nothing of value is lost if we as a society choose to say that these kinds of speech are unacceptable.

      • iopq@lemmy.world
        0·
        3 days ago

        A society can choose to say that certain types of speech are intolerable, but do we get better results by jailing those people? Or do we make it more acceptable over time to jail people who are simply protesting against the government? Do we then apply violence to the protesters who don’t agree to be peacefully arrested?

        This isn’t a theoretical consideration. See Tiananmen square, arrests of protesters in Russia, Iran, etc. The propaganda mouthpieces of these countries love to point out when similar things happen in the West

        • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          3 days ago

          It’s not a hypothetical, but it’s also not responding to the specific premise of Popper’s paradox.

          You’re basically doing the equivalent of saying “Some people get falsely accused of murder, therefore we should make murder legal.”

          People protesting against the government are not enaging in intolerant speech. It’s that’s simple. There’s a clear cut rule that Popper lays out. You can say “Oh, but what if we decide to not follow that rule?” but then you’ve completely rejected the premise. That’s no more useful than it is to suggest that democracy is bad because democracies sometimes become dictatorships. If your argument “X is bad if you do it badly” then you’re always going to be right, but not in a way that’s useful.

          • iopq@lemmy.world
            0·
            2 days ago

            There’s a huge difference. When there’s a body it’s obvious someone died. When someone gets offended, no crime was committed. But almost the same thing that is only offensive to people could cross the line into harassment.

            • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
              0·
              2 days ago

              Except you’ll notice that I never said a word about “harassment” or things being “offensive”. Throughout this discussion I have only ever advocated for the ability to restrict speech that is “intolerant.” Not offensive. Not harassing.

              Intolerance is not about what offends others. You can be as offended as you like by the phrase “Isreal should not commit genocide,” but it is not intolerant, because intolerant speech is only that which seeks to attack, constrain or eliminate tolerance itself.

              A tolerant society is one in which all tolerant people can exist freely and without oppression. The intolerant are those that would seek to exclude tolerant people from the protections of that society. It is paradoxical to extend tolerance to those who seek to destroy tolerance.

              • iopq@lemmy.world
                0·
                2 days ago

                Doesn’t change anything. From one perspective no crime was committed because nobody was being intolerant, but from another perspective someone was.

                You can apply it to many statements, like “There should be no state in the Middle East for Jews”

                That could be intolerant or maybe not.

                • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
                  0·
                  2 days ago

                  Intolerance, in itself, is not a matter of perspective. It’s a clear criteria.

                  That doesn’t mean we can always clearly determine what speech is or is not intolerant. It often relies on gauging intent, which is difficult to do. The example you cited would be a judgement call for the courts; it very likely does not cross the line into intolerant speech, but if you could clearly demonstrate antisemitic intent on the part of the author, which would require other overtly antisemitic statements or actions, then you might be able to prove a case.

                  And this is nothing new. The law juggles questions of intent all the time. In cases of doubt, we err on the side of innocence. This is all very well trod territory. Why is it acceptable to assess the question of intent when judging between murder and manslaughter, but suddenly that becomes an unacceptable complication when we’re talking about what is or isn’t hate speech?