Freedom of speech - not just a Moroccan issue

One of the interesting things about the current unrest in the Moroccan blogosphere about Mohamed Erraji being fined and sentenced to prison earlier this week for "lacking respect toward the person of the king and the royal family" is the notion held by many commentators that this is a "Moroccan problem". Far from it.

There are a lot of countries that have laws about respect for the head of state. It is interesting that in the same week as the Erraji affair other cases were bubbling along on the international scene. We have already reported on The Jewel of Medina, so here are a couple of other cases.

Harry Nicolaides versus the King of Thailand.

Nicolaides was arrested almost two weeks ago at Bangkok airport and charged with criminal defamation under Thailand's strict lese majesty laws. The 41-year-old Melbourne man wrote a book in 2005 which makes brief reference to the King and the Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn.

He faces up to 15 years in prison if found guilty.

Nicolaides was refused bail for a second time yesterday, despite surrendering his passport to Australian authorities in Thailand.

He did not appear in court, but in a written judgement, two judges determined that he should remain at Bangkok's remand centre because of the seriousness of the alleged crime and because he was a flight risk.

For the curious, here is a sample of his breathless prose:

Working as a hotel concierge in Melbourne has prepared me well for the itinerant life as Writer-at-large in Thailand. My instinctive networking skills have gained me employment as an English teacher to beautiful Thai girls at the Amanpuri – the world’s most exclusive resort, helped me to develop friendships with the senior constabulary of the Phuket police force (avoiding liability for recklessly endangering the life of former Malaysian President Mahatir by nearly colliding with his 17 car motorcade on a private road) and become a senior lecturer to 120 students in social psychology at the Prince of Songkla University. A few phone calls and I can be on a million-dollar yacht sharing stories with a maverick boat captain who has smoked pot with Robert De Niro, got drunk with Mel Gibson and rubbed sun tan lotion on Nicole Kidman’s back. And all this happens in Phuket, Thailand exactly four degrees north of the Equator where there is just three degrees of separation between Nicole Kidman’s buttocks and my left hand. My right hand is vigorously networking...

The family of the Australian man charged with insulting the king of Thailand has written an apology to the royal family. The letter, seeking forgiveness, was delivered to the office of King Bhumipol Adulyadej yesterday.

Sabrina Guzzanti versus the Pope.

In many countries freedom of speech is usually protected within the realm of satire or comedy. This is not so, it seems, if you live in Italy and the joke is against the Pope. Comedienne Sabrina Guzzanti is now facing a five year prison term because she suggested that Pope Benedict XVI would go to Hell and be tormented by homosexual demons.

Addressing a Rome rally in July, Guzzanti warned the audience that within 20 years Italian teachers would be vetted and chosen by the Vatican, then added the punchline: "But then, within 20 years the Pope will be where he ought to be — in Hell, tormented by great big poofter devils, and very active ones, not passive ones."

The joke may have gone done well with her crowd on the Piazza Navona in Rome, but not with Italian prosecutors. She is facing prosecution for "offending the honour of the sacred and inviolable person" of Benedict XVI.

As Richard Owen comments in The Times Online: The Christian world may have been dismayed, even outraged, at the Muslim reaction in 2005 to Danish cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammed, but Italian law enforcement appears to have had its own sense of humour failure. Giovanni Ferrara, the Rome prosecutor, is invoking the 1929 Lateran Treaty between Italy and the Vatican, which stipulates that an insult to the Pope carries the same penalty as an insult to the Italian President.

Of course insulting heads of state or even popes - is nothing new. Dante did a great hatchet job on Pope Boniface VIII when in his Inferno he condemned Boniface VIII to Hell even before his death. As Dante approaches the circle of those sinners who have committed simony – the buying and selling of church offices – the soul of Pope Nicholas III mistakes Dante for Boniface:

“Shame of the Papal Chair! and art thou come,
Hollow and dismal from the fiery tomb,”
He cried – “a later doom the Prophet told –
But come, Seducer of the Spouse of God,
Who rul’d the christian world with iron rod,
Come! thine eternal revenues behold!”

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