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* Giulio Meotti: France Quietly Reintroducing the Crime of Blasphemy
* Amir Taheri: A Man of a Thousand Faces Wears a New Mask


** France Quietly Reintroducing the Crime of Blasphemy ([link removed])
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by Giulio Meotti • February 9, 2020 at 5:00 am
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2Fwww.gatestoneinstitute.org%2F15526%2Ffrance-blasphemy-censorship&pubid=ra-52f7af5809191749&ct=1&title=France+Quietly+Reintroducing+the+Crime+of+Blasphemy [link removed]
* Today, in France, using freedom of expression to criticize Islam is clearly an extremely dangerous act, even if you, like Mila, are a child.
* France is rapidly going from laïcité (secularism) to lâcheté (cowardice); from freedom of expression to unconditional surrender. France keeps trying to procrastinate while Islamism thrives on the elites' rapidly abandoning their Judeo-Christian values.
* Feminist organizations, so quick to denounce "toxic masculinity" and "patriarchal structures of domination", were also silent.
* Today, in France, the country of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which always sanctified freedom of expression and the right to criticize religion and ideologies, some within the justice system.... are quietly and de facto reintroducing the crime of blasphemy.

Today, in France, the country that always sanctified freedom of expression and the right to criticize religion and ideologies, some within the justice system are quietly and de facto reintroducing the crime of blasphemy. (Images source: iStock. Image is illustrative and does not represent any person named in the article.)

France had just come out of the fifth anniversary of the massacre at its satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo than it was plunged into a similar case. On January 18, Mila O., a 16-year-old French girl, made insulting comments about Islam during an Instagram livestream.

"During her livestream, a Muslim boy asked her out in the comments, but she turned him down because she is gay. He responded by accusing her of racism and calling her a 'dirty lesbian'. In an angry follow-up video, streamed immediately after she was insulted, Mila responded by saying that she 'hates religion'".

Mila continued, saying among other things:

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** A Man of a Thousand Faces Wears a New Mask ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • February 9, 2020 at 4:00 am
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* In the meantime, conscious of the fact that Iranians are suckers for real or fake academic titles, to enhance his persona, Rouhani enrolled in a British college in Glasgow to obtain a PhD in Islamic law. Thus, in a few years' time, he was able to rebrand himself as Dr. Hassan Rouhani, the "moderate reformist with Western education."
* By the 1990s, in Western policy circles, Rouhani had acquired the reputation of "a man with whom we can work".
* Rouhani's message, peddled by cronies including Foreign Minister Muhammad-Javad Zarif, is that the internal opposition and foreign powers worried about Iran should be patient and help "moderates" re-orient the storm-stricken ship of the regime towards calmer waters.
* Will Rouhani's scenario, for easing Khamenei off his pedestal, work? I doubt it. Rouhani may be a talented man of a thousand faces, but 40 years of experience has shown that every one of those faces turned out to be a mask.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani may be a talented man of a thousand faces, but 40 years of experience has shown that every one of those faces turned out to be a mask. (Photo by Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

Whatever one might think of Hassan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, one thing is certain: had things gone differently in Iran 40 years ago, he might have become a writer of penny-dreadfuls with provincial themes. Rouhani's talent for fiction writing is demonstrated by the way he has reinvented himself over the decades.

In 1977, when the first rumbles of revolution roared in Iran, he was a student, going by the name of Hassan Fereidun, in England, seeking a degree in textile design.

A few months later, he re-named himself Rouhani, meaning spiritual or clerical. Fereidun was a Persian nationalistic name and would not do for a man plotting to cast himself as a champion of faith.

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