Muslims 'must be more tolerant'

Muslims should have "broader shoulders" when it comes to issues of free speech such as the Danish cartoons, a Lib Dem home affairs spokesman has said.
Kishwer Falkner, who is a Muslim, said her community must be "tolerant" and "learn the art of peaceful dissent".
She said freedom of speech was not just a Western concept but it was necessary in any pluralistic society.
Cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad caused offence among Muslims and sparked protests in some countries.
Consistency
Lady Falkner said there was "no doubt" the cartoons had offended Muslims and "no doubt their publication in Britain was an error of judgement".
But she said self-censorship was always better than state censorship and freedom of speech was a "necessary condition" of living in a pluralistic society.
The Lib Dems last month helped defeat the government over plans to ban incitement to religious hatred, which had been called for by Muslim groups who want the same protection from offence as Christians.
Lady Falkner, who speaks for the Lib Dems on home affairs in the Lords, said the blasphemy laws protecting Christians should now be repealed to ensure consistency.
But she added: "If we demand equality, we cannot demand respect - that has to be earned."

'Hateful'

She told delegates: "I would say to my community we have to become more broad shouldered. We have to become more tolerant. We have to learn the art of peaceful dissent."
She said laws in Austria and Germany banning denial of the holocaust should also be scrapped, arguing they were now out of place in the "mature and confident democracies" the two countries had become.
"They should repeal it and let Holocaust deniers express their hateful and warped versions of history," she said.
Her views were echoed by Lib Dem human rights spokesman Evan Harris, who told delegates said that with extremists - "and even our own prime minister in a mild way" - increasingly "hiding behind religious beliefs" it had never been more important to stand up for free speech.

Globalised media

He urged the party to say no to blasphemy laws, holocaust denial laws and, in a reference to London Mayor Ken Livingstone's suspension over remarks he made to a Jewish reporter, "no to standards board speech police".
He warned that unless people stood up against state censorship "people easily offended will be able to get protection for their views but people less easily offended will not be able to get protection for their views".
He told delegates: "If you don't want to read The Satanic Verses don't buy the book. If you don't want to watch Jerry Springer the Opera on the BBC switch channels.
"If you don't want to read cartoons in a Danish newspaper, don't go to Denmark and buy those newspapers."
Sajj Karim MEP said Muslims in the European Union had "by and large" responded to the publication of the cartoons democratically, even though they had been offended by them.
He said the globalised nature of modern media meant extra care had to be taken - but the final judgement on whether to publish should be left to the press and not the censors.
"We as a party must defend the editors' right to make that judgement call at all costs," he told delegates.
Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael also backed calls for greater freedom of speech, telling delegates: "There is no such thing as freedom not be offended.