VERS UNE INTERDICTION DES "MILLE ET UNE NUITS"
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One Thousand and One (or Fewer?) Arabian Nights
by Ann Snyder
• Jul 22, 2010
http://www.legal-project.org/
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The tales that so captivated King Shahryar that he spared the life of Scheherazade have narrowly escaped their own demise (or at least expurgation).
The L.A. Times reported that a group of Egyptian attorneys filed a suit aimed at banning completely or at least censoring supposedly offensive passages from a recent edition of the classic, The Arabian Nights. Fortunately, the prosecutor general of Egypt threw out that suit.
However, the group, Lawyers Without Shackles, has other works in its sights. According to the article, they are "determined to delete salacious passages from contemporary literature and cherished classics."
The group appears to be engaged in the same kind of Islamist lawfare tactics we have seen in the West, reportedly bringing lawsuits they have little expectation of winning. In both the U.S. and Europe, we have seen that threats of legal action can have chilling effects on free speech, effectively silencing it even when threats of violence have failed.
While the dismissal is a win for freedom of expression, it should serve as a reminder of what is at stake in the battle against Islamist lawfare. The movement will attack anything that doesn't fit its agenda. Even a classic piece of Arabic literature is not off limits. Their goal is a world in which minds are shackled, a world in which expressive activities are severely curtailed, and in which our human heritage (Muslim, non-Muslim; Arab, non-Arab) is purged of anything deemed to be "offensive." This is freedom of expression Islamist-style. This is what the Legal Project is fighting against. Join us.
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