Days after millions marched through the streets of Paris, ostensibly to show their support for free speech, French authorities have arrested 54 people for, um, saying Bad Stuff:
At least 54 people have been detained by police in France for “defending or glorifying terrorism” in the wake of last week’s attacks in Paris.
Many of the arrests are believed to stem from comments made on Facebook, Twitter and social media as the world reacted to the atrocities.
They are part of a broader French crackdown on perceived hate speech, extremism and anti-Semitism amid a government push for tougher anti-terrorism measures.
So, yeah, I don’t know what all 54 of these people were writing. Maybe some of them were openly calling for more attacks, which is incitement to violence and probably should draw some kind of law enforcement response. But if all these people were doing was offering opinions, even if they were expressing some kind of support for the Charlie Hebdo attack (apparently some on Twitter were using the hashtag #jesuisKouachi, a play on the #jesuisCharlie movement that formed after the attacks), then this is ridiculous. The freedom to express an offensive opinion is at the core of what free speech means (something that the Charlie Hebdo folks, who are impressively back in business as of today, know quite well). I’m not a lawyer, much less a French lawyer, so as far as I know it may be against French law to express offensive opinions, or at least some offensive opinions. But in that case, we need to stop pretending that French law has anything to do with protecting free speech.
The Foreign Exchanges Companion 