ubject: Hearing slated for Popular Italian Book
French court to hear request to ban
book accused of inciting anti-
Muslim hatred
Wed Oct 9, 5:47 AM ET
PARIS - A French court was set to hear a request Wednesday to halt
distribution of a popular book that anti-racism campaigners claim incites hatred against Muslims.
The Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between People, or
MRAP, is seeking a French ban on "The Rage and the Pride," by Italian
journalist Oriana Fallaci. Two other human rights groups are asking
the court to require the book to contain a warning about the content
to readers.
In one passage the Movement Against Racism objects to, Fallaci wrote
that Muslims "multiply like rats." In another, she says "the children
of Allah spend their time with their bottoms in the air, praying five
times a day."
In June, a Paris judge refused to ban the book but sent the case to
another court to hear arguments in greater detail. A hearing was
scheduled Wednesday.
Despite critics accusing Fallaci of writing an anti-Muslim, anti-
immigrant tirade, the book has been a big hit. It sold some 45,000
copies in France and more than 1 million in Italy. It was also a best
seller in Germany.
Both the French Catholic and Protestant churches have joined Muslim
leaders in decrying the book, calling it "repulsive" and its
interpretation of the Koran "dangerous."
Fallaci, 72, a former Resistance fighter and war correspondent best
known for her uncompromising interviews with world leaders, ended a
decade-long, self-imposed silence after Sept. 11 by writing the book
in angry reaction to the terrorist attacks in New York, where she
lives.
"This book deliberately makes all the world's Muslims accountable and
guilty for the Sept. 11 attacks," the Movement Against Racism said in
a statement.
Fallaci has threatened to sue the group for calling her book racist.
Her lawyers argue the book has the right to exist in the name of
freedom of expression.
The book is due to be published in the United States this fall
Hearing slated for Popular Italian Book
Re: Hearing slated for Popular Italian Book
French Author Acquitted of Charges for Anti-Islam Comment
By ALAN RIDING
PARIS, Oct. 22 — The French novelist Michel Houellebecq, who often seems to delight in shocking his readers, was acquitted by a Paris court today of charges of inciting racial hatred when he declared in an interview last year that Islam was "the most stupid religion."
The verdict by a three-member bench had been expected after the public prosecutor recommended during a court hearing last month that all charges be dropped. The case was brought by three Muslim associations and the Human Rights League in Paris.
Mr. Houellebecq (pronounced WELL-beck), 45, who lives in Ireland and was not present in court today, made his comment about Islam during an interview last year with the literary magazine Lire. "When you read the Koran, you give up," he said at the time. "At least the Bible is very beautiful because Jews have an extraordinary literary talent."
The writer, best known in the United States for his second novel, "The Elementary Particles," was being interviewed by Lire to publicize his third novel, "Plateforme." As with his other works, "Plateforme" is an acid commentary on modern Western society told largely through sexual encounters and frustration. But it ends with a Muslim extremist attack on a tourist resort in Thailand, which prompts the narrator to wish for the death of Palestinians.
Mr. Houellebecq's lawyers argued that his commentary fell within the bounds of free speech. When the public prosecutor endorsed that position, the lawyer for the Muslim and rights groups, Jean-Marc Varaut, expressed astonishment. "To call Islam `the most stupid religion' is a provocation," he said.
Still, while the case has drawn attention in the news media here, it has not brought on a crisis in France's oft-troubled relations with its large Muslim population. Rather, it appears to have been viewed more as another example of Mr. Houellebecq's talent in drawing attention to himself by being outrageously politically incorrect.
Mr. Houellebecq nonetheless won support from from the British writer Salman Rushdie, who lived under a death fatwa after Iranian clerics said they found blasphemy in his 1988 novel, "The Satanic Verses." This week another British novelist, Martin Amis, was quoted as telling The Times of London that "it seems to me that the key to radical Islam is that it is quivering with male insecurity." And he added, "There's a huge injection of sexuality — men's sexuality — in radical Islam."
In a case parallel to Mr. Houellebecq's, also currently before French courts, the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci is facing charges of inciting racial hatred for the assertion in her post-Sept. 11 book, "The Rage And The Pride," that Muslims "multiply like rats."
In its ruling today, the Paris court acknowledged that Mr. Houellebecq's remark about Islam was "without a doubt characterized by neither a particularly noble outlook nor by the subtlety of its phrasing." But the court said it was not a punishable offense. "This remark does not contain any intent to abuse verbally, show contempt for or insult the followers of the religion in question," it said.
Mr. Houellebecq's lawyer, Emmanuel Pierrat, said he noted with "great satisfaction" that the crime of blasphemy had not been reinstated in French law.
Speaking for the Muslim groups, Mr. Varaut told reporters that he intended to appeal the verdict.
By ALAN RIDING
PARIS, Oct. 22 — The French novelist Michel Houellebecq, who often seems to delight in shocking his readers, was acquitted by a Paris court today of charges of inciting racial hatred when he declared in an interview last year that Islam was "the most stupid religion."
The verdict by a three-member bench had been expected after the public prosecutor recommended during a court hearing last month that all charges be dropped. The case was brought by three Muslim associations and the Human Rights League in Paris.
Mr. Houellebecq (pronounced WELL-beck), 45, who lives in Ireland and was not present in court today, made his comment about Islam during an interview last year with the literary magazine Lire. "When you read the Koran, you give up," he said at the time. "At least the Bible is very beautiful because Jews have an extraordinary literary talent."
The writer, best known in the United States for his second novel, "The Elementary Particles," was being interviewed by Lire to publicize his third novel, "Plateforme." As with his other works, "Plateforme" is an acid commentary on modern Western society told largely through sexual encounters and frustration. But it ends with a Muslim extremist attack on a tourist resort in Thailand, which prompts the narrator to wish for the death of Palestinians.
Mr. Houellebecq's lawyers argued that his commentary fell within the bounds of free speech. When the public prosecutor endorsed that position, the lawyer for the Muslim and rights groups, Jean-Marc Varaut, expressed astonishment. "To call Islam `the most stupid religion' is a provocation," he said.
Still, while the case has drawn attention in the news media here, it has not brought on a crisis in France's oft-troubled relations with its large Muslim population. Rather, it appears to have been viewed more as another example of Mr. Houellebecq's talent in drawing attention to himself by being outrageously politically incorrect.
Mr. Houellebecq nonetheless won support from from the British writer Salman Rushdie, who lived under a death fatwa after Iranian clerics said they found blasphemy in his 1988 novel, "The Satanic Verses." This week another British novelist, Martin Amis, was quoted as telling The Times of London that "it seems to me that the key to radical Islam is that it is quivering with male insecurity." And he added, "There's a huge injection of sexuality — men's sexuality — in radical Islam."
In a case parallel to Mr. Houellebecq's, also currently before French courts, the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci is facing charges of inciting racial hatred for the assertion in her post-Sept. 11 book, "The Rage And The Pride," that Muslims "multiply like rats."
In its ruling today, the Paris court acknowledged that Mr. Houellebecq's remark about Islam was "without a doubt characterized by neither a particularly noble outlook nor by the subtlety of its phrasing." But the court said it was not a punishable offense. "This remark does not contain any intent to abuse verbally, show contempt for or insult the followers of the religion in question," it said.
Mr. Houellebecq's lawyer, Emmanuel Pierrat, said he noted with "great satisfaction" that the crime of blasphemy had not been reinstated in French law.
Speaking for the Muslim groups, Mr. Varaut told reporters that he intended to appeal the verdict.