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Free speech, religion clash over anti-Muslim film
By Gillian Flaccus
The Associated Press
unusual at all for the gov-
ernment to step in and give
a citizen in distress or dan-
ger special protection, but it
can’t be unlimited. They’re
going to have to strike a bal-
ance.’’
A 14-minute trailer for the
film posted on YouTube
sparked violence in the
Middle East, including an
attack in Libya in which a
U.S. ambassador was killed.
Nakoula, a Coptic Christian
and American citizen who
served federal prison time
for check fraud, told The
Associated Press in a short
interview last week that he
was involved in manage-
ment and logistics for the
anti-Islamic film. Federal
officials, however, told the
AP they have concluded he
was behind the movie.
Furor over the film has
been widespread. Bahrain
protesters used Twitter to
organize demonstrations
that included burning Amer-
ican flags in the nation that
hosts the U.S. Navy’s 5th
OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY PETE SOUZA
CERRITOS, Calif. (AP)
— While the man behind an
anti-Islam movie that ignit-
ed violence across the Mid-
dle East would likely face
swift punishment in his
native Egypt for making the
film, in America the govern-
ment is in the thorny posi-
tion of protecting his free
speech rights and looking
out for his safety even while
condemning his message.
It’s a paradox that makes
little sense to those protest-
ing and calling for blood. To
them, the movie dialogue
denigrating the Prophet
Muhammad is all the evi-
dence needed to pursue jus-
tice — vigilante or
otherwise
—
against
Nakoula Bassely Nakoula,
an American citizen origi-
nally from Egypt.
In America, there’s noth-
ing illegal about making a
movie that disparages a reli-
gious figure. And that has
Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan
could march without being
attacked for their views.
But Nakoula’s case invites
scrutiny because the free
speech he exercised with the
film “Innocence of Mus-
lims’’ has had such far-
reaching
and
violent
implications.
If the government were to
overtly protect Nakoula, it
could be seen by some as
tacit approval of the film,
and
further
enflame
protests. Leaving him to
fend for himself could have
deadly consequences. There
are examples of violence
against others who have
written or spoken against
Muhammad.
Egypt’s general prosecu-
tor on Tuesday issued arrest
warrants for seven expat
Egyptian Coptic Christians,
including Nakoula, and
referred them to trial on
charges of harming national
unity, insulting and publicly
attacking Islam and spread-
ing false information. The
President Barack Obama participates in a conference call with his national
security team on the situation in the Middle East and North Africa, in Golden,
Colo., Sept. 13, 2012. Brian McKeon, National Security Council Chief of Staff,
is at left.
the Obama administration
walking a diplomatic tight
rope less than two months
before the election — how
to express outrage over the
movie’s treatment of Islam
without compromising the
most basic American free-
dom.
“The thing that makes this
particularly difficult for the
United States is that ... we
treat what most of us would
refer to as hate speech as
constitutionally protected
speech and Americans don’t
appreciate, I think, how
unusual this position seems
in the rest of the world,’’
said Lawrence Rosenthal, a
professor at Chapman Uni-
versity’s School of Law in
Orange, Calif.
The situation also raises
vexing questions about how
far the government can and
should go to protect some-
one who exercises their
First Amendment right. In
the past, for example, police
have stood guard to ensure
charges carry the death
penalty.
So far, the U.S. govern-
ment has acknowledged
offering Nakoula very limit-
ed assistance. Los Angeles
County sheriff’s deputies
escorted Nakoula to an
interview with federal pro-
bation officials. They did so
in the dead of night and
allowed Nakoula to cover
his face. And early Monday,
deputies answered his fami-
ly’s request for help leaving
the house where they’d been
holed up for five days so
they could reunite with the
55-year-old filmmaker. All
remain in hiding.
Department spokesman
Steve Whitmore stressed the
agency is not providing pro-
tective custody. He referred
questions to federal authori-
ties, who have declined to
comment.
Jody Armour, a professor
at the University of South-
ern California’s Gould
School of Law, said it’s “not
Fleet. Pakistan’s conserva-
tive Islamist parties sent out
text messages, mosque
announcements and made
phone calls to bring out
protest crowds, including
about 1,000 people in the
northwestern
city
of
Peshawar on Sunday and
hundreds who rushed the
U.S. consulate in Karachi,
sparking clashes with police
in which one demonstrator
was killed.
“Yes, we understand the
First Amendment and all of
this stuff,’’ wrote Khalid
Amayreh, a prominent
Islamist commentator and
blogger in Hebron on the
West Bank. ``But you must
also understand that the
Prophet (for us) is a million
times more sacred than the
American Constitution.’’
In America, the govern-
ment can’t even order that
the video be removed from
YouTube. All it can do is
ask. And so far, parent com-
pany Google has declined,
Screen still from the film ‘Innocence of Muslims’
saying the video was within
its guidelines for content.
The company did restrict
access to the video in cer-
tain countries, including
Egypt, Libya and Indonesia,
the world’s most populous
Muslim nation.
“This can be a challenge
because what’s OK in one
country can be offensive
elsewhere,’’ the company
said in a statement.
That’s precisely the point
about the First Amendment,
Armour said.
“The reason it is a consti-
tutionally protected interest
is precisely because it may
prove unpopular,’’ he said.
“Words and images don’t
just convey information,
they are attached to conse-
quences. That’s when we
really have to ask ourselves,
`What price are we willing
to pay for that First Amend-
ment interest?’ And these
are the times that really test
our convictions.’’
In 1975, former CIA agent
Philip Agee published a
book detailing agency oper-
ations and disclosing the
names of a number of CIA
agents working undercover
overseas, Rosenthal said.
Even in that instance, the
U.S. government didn’t
press criminal charges but
instead revoked Agee’s
passport and sued him for
the book’s profits.
“It’s not clear that there is,
on the books today, a law
relatively low visibility way
of prosecuting him but not
technically for what he said
and how inflammatory it
was,’’ Armour said. “It may
be a way of splitting the
baby.’’
Nakoula’s case invites scrutiny
because the free speech he
exercised with the film
‘Innocence of Muslims’ has
had such far-reaching and
violent implications
that makes what (Nakoula)
did a crime,’’ Rosenthal
said. ``This is an extremely
difficult problem.’’
Indeed, federal officials
have said they are looking at
Nakoula only in the context
of whether he violated his
probation for the fraud con-
viction. Under terms of his
sentence, he was banned
from using computers or the
Internet as part of his sen-
tence.
The probation issue
``gives the government a
Associated Press writer
Brian Murphy in Dubai,
United Arab Emirates, con-
tributed to this report.
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9-19-12
September 19, 2012 The Seattle Skanner Page 7