Upsetting Harmony

Rather than give the air of publicity to Geert Wilders’ circus, I want to draw your attention instead to recent events in Calcutta (or Kolkata, as we are supposed to call it these days). Johann Hari recently wrote what I thought was an excellent article on the defense of free speech. The editors of the Indian newspaper, The Statesman, thought so too. So much so that they reprinted it. Result, four thousand Islamic fundamentalists rioted outside the newspaper’s offices in Calcutta, and the editor and publisher have now been arrested on the charge of "deliberately acting with malicious intent to outrage religious feelings". Go and read about it. Also, Ophelia has some thoughts about the situation, and the need to defend human rights.