Netherlands confronts cartoon threat
Reporting on the arrest of the cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot in the Netherlands, the Wall Street Journal reveals that the Dutch Government certainly has its priorities right in the fight for free speech and liberty against obscurantism and religiously-inspired totalitarianism. Officials from the intelligence service, the interior ministry, the prosecutor’s office and other high-powered state bodies, under the leadership of a senior counter-terrorism officer, to create the top-secret …
Interdepartmental Working Group on Cartoons.
The title hardly sounds ominous, but the existence of this body is deeply troubling to anyone concerned about free speech (not to mention the priorities of government). The group is intended to alert Dutch officials to any cartoon-related dangers the Netherlands may face (unfunny Garfield strips? No, I don’t think that’s what they mean) and has no censorship role, we are assured. But then, no imposition of censorship is needed when an entire culture is bending over backwards to censor itself.
More at Greenspiece and Gates of Vienna.
