Freespeech or not? CNN?MSNBC reporter arrested

**Freewheelin2012** · 27-09-2012, 05:32 AM

The New York Post reported Egyptian-American columnist Mona Eltahawy has been arrested for defacing an anti-Muslim ad in the New York subway system. The video shows her spraying pink paint on the ad while a supporter of the ad tries to block her. She's a journalist for censorship.
Eltahawy, a former Reuters correspondent, has been a recent favorite of CNN and MSNBC’s weekend morning shows to discuss Egypt, and she often smears together the Islamist “right wing” and the American right wing, as she did on Melissa Harris-Perry just 11 days ago [video and transcript below]:

ELTAHAWY: We [Egyptians] have a president who is trying to establish his position somewhere in the middle and we have a group that is trying to establish themselves on the right wing. And you`re having a similar situation in the U.S. We are coming up to elections now in less than two months. There is a right wing fringe there as well. So, you`ve got a right wing and a right wing. Both minorities, both trying to provoke people and a whole lot of people with very, very, sometimes legitimate grievances, but sometimes utterly senseless grievances, being caught in the middle.
Eltahawy was even featured on the September 15 NBC Nightly News decrying America’s long-term support for Egyptian dictators. Here’s how the New York Post characterized the subway fight:

“Mona, do you think you have the right to do this?” said Pamela Hall, holding a mounted camera as she tried to block the barrage of spray paint.

“I do actually,” Eltahawy calmly responded. “I think this is freedom of expression, just as this is freedom of expression.”

Hall then thrusts herself between Eltahawy’s spray paint and the poster.

Eltahawy -- an activist who has appeared on MSNBC and CNN -- engaged her in an odd cat-and-mouse dance, spraying pink every time she had an opening.

“What right do you have to violate free speech,” Hall pleaded.

“I’m not violating it. I’m making an expression on free speech,” an increasingly agitated Eltahawy shot back.

“You do not have the right!” Hall said.

“I do actually and I’m doing it right now and you should get out of the way! Do you want paint on yourself,” Eltahawy shot back.

As the poster defender bobbed and weaved to get in the paint’s way, Eltahawy mocked: “That’s right, defend racism.”
Eltahawy appeared in the typically long segments on the Harris-Perry show on April 28, July 1, and September 15, and also appeared on Up With Chris Hayes on June 24. Just in September, Eltahawy was featured in seven interviews about Egypt just from September 11 to 13, including two appearances on Anderson Cooper 360 (the seven interviews would not count replays).

CNN reported the vandalism this morning on Early Start, but Eltahawy was simply an “activist” gone awry:
Check out this New York Post video. That is activist Mona Eltahawy, tussling with the woman holding a mounted camera. Eltahawy calls what she is doing an expression of free speech. That's the very argument supporters of the posters used to win the right to put them up. Three of the 10 posters at various subway stations were ripped or defaced during the first day that they were up.
Eltahawy was also interviewed on the April 24 Morning Edition on NPR, all about her provocative cover story for Foreign Policy magazine. As Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi explained:
Even Foreign Policy - Foreign Policy! - featured cover skin: a naked model covered in black body paint done up to resemble a burqa.

The latter image was used to illustrate a "Sex Issue" cover essay by Egyptian American writer Mona Eltahawy about the suppression of women's rights in the Middle East and the Arab world. But it was also an ironic comment about magazine covers, said FP editor in chief Susan Glasser.

"It makes a point about their culture and ours, and about American magazines and sex," she said. "I don't think you can look at that image as anything other than a commentary on Western culture's obsession with the cliches of centerfolds and cover models and also the hard realities of the [Arab] culture that Mona is writing about."

Yes, sex, or at least sexiness, sells. Eltahawy's article has gotten more than a million page views, making it one of the most-read ever for Foreign Policy, which is owned by The Washington Post Co.

**Necron99** · 27-09-2012, 07:15 AM

No such right as "Freedom of Expresssion", girls had one to many hits of koran juice.

**FailSafe** · 27-09-2012, 07:47 AM

She was defacing public property- you can't spray paint the walls (or legally placed ads/posters) in the subway- what did she think was going to happen?

I respect her right to speak out or protest, but she was being disingenuous with her dismay over being arrested.

**Freewheelin2012** · 27-09-2012, 08:23 AM

Not sure about this one. Plenty of people defacing posters around the world which I am sure people would support. She was just driven over the edge. Those who feel there is too much of this should gather the cash and fight them their own way with posters, billboards, by buying TV stations, etc. Money is power and those who oppose such as Muslim certainly can buyout a major TV channel to push their case. Anyways, this really has nothing to do with religion. There's plenty of lies and abuse presented through the media on a variety of topics. Fox news is a perfect example of the power of dollars.

**Cujo** · 27-09-2012, 09:20 AM

Originally Posted by Freewheelin2012

Not sure about this one. Plenty of people defacing posters around the world .

This wasn't 'around the world' this was defacing private property in New York City.
(regardless of how you feel about it)

**sabang** · 27-09-2012, 10:43 AM

I'm surprised the ad was allowed- it is not what I would expect to see displayed in public in a first world nation. Now the door is opened for someone to put up an equal but opposite poster lambasting the Israeli occupation, in similar doggerel- and with the precedent just set, under the laws of free speech it cannot be prevented. Well done NYC.

**Boon Mee** · 27-09-2012, 10:49 AM

^
The ad is allowed under the protection of the right of free speech. America isn't a totaltarian state ...yet.

Fuckin' A Ditty Bag that stupid skant should be arrested. As mentioned, it's defacing public property.

**Lostandfound** · 27-09-2012, 10:54 AM

Lock the nagging bitch up in Guatanamo.

**Cujo** · 27-09-2012, 10:55 AM

^^
So will someone be posting ads
"6 million jews gassed in germany???
I don't think so" any time soon?
I think these adds are in very poor taste.
Support the civilized man, support Israel?
Fuck them.

**Boon Mee** · 27-09-2012, 10:58 AM

^
Gonna help HM warm up them ovens are ya Kuj?

**Cujo** · 27-09-2012, 11:02 AM

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

^
Gonna help HM warm up them ovens are ya Kuj?

Ovens? What ovens?
i'm not buying it.

**Boon Mee** · 27-09-2012, 11:06 AM

Originally Posted by Koojo

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

^
Gonna help HM warm up them ovens are ya Kuj?

Ovens? What ovens?
i'm not buying it.

Buchwald. Auschwitz...ever, like, heard of them places have ya?

**Cujo** · 27-09-2012, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Originally Posted by Koojo

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

^
Gonna help HM warm up them ovens are ya Kuj?

Ovens? What ovens?
i'm not buying it.

Buchwald. Auschwitz...ever, like, heard of them places have ya?

Of course I have, but there were no ovens there.

**chitown** · 27-09-2012, 11:00 AM

The thread title is misleading. This was vandalism, not free speech.

**barbaro** · 28-09-2012, 02:21 PM

Originally Posted by chitown

The thread title is misleading. This was vandalism, not free speech.

I see your point, Chi.

There is a line.

Perhaps this is both Vandalism and free speech.

Nonetheless, New York has had these incidences between the pro-Pali and Pro-Israel communities before.

I remember one poster on a Thailand forum who is pro-Israel crossed a picket line and broke a sign that said something like "liberate Palestine" or something like that.

This issue never goes away....

**sabang** · 27-09-2012, 11:03 AM

Oh, the person behind it (or at least the public face)? good old Pamela Geller, the self described "Queen of Moslem bashers", and spearhead of the anti "911 Mosque" protests.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

The ad is allowed under the protection of the right of free speech. America isn't a totaltarian state ...yet.

Quite- so under that same precedent, an equal but opposite piece of breathless drivel has to be allowed. Free speech is a two edged sword.

**Lostandfound** · 27-09-2012, 12:25 PM

Advocacy of the Holocaust was used to promote the establishment of Israel, to the point where it's virtually a national religion.

Stalin and Mao are reckoned to have liquidated 25 m people between them, before we get on to Pol Pot. How would Americans feel if 100 m Russians relocated to New Hampshire and declared themselves an autonomous state with an army equipped by China?

**Freewheelin2012** · 27-09-2012, 03:50 PM

This 'vandal' defaced something hateful. I'm sure quite a few people resisting the Nazis were 'punished' for defacing posters promoting the Nazis. The woman may become a martyr to the legal system but she brought light to the issue and to the twats who push hate media.

**Boon Mee** · 27-09-2012, 04:00 PM

^
Hateful?

Since when did it become 'hateful' to speak the truth, eh?

...mebe it were because their widdle feelers are getting hurt again?

**Little Chuchok** · 27-09-2012, 04:20 PM

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

^
Hateful?

Since when did it become 'hateful' to speak the truth, eh?

...mebe it were because their widdle feelers are getting hurt again?

If I had my way, i'd turn the whole middle east into glass...including the joos.

Problem solved.

Next!

**FailSafe** · 27-09-2012, 04:06 PM

^

Not to mention 'Martyr to the legal system'.

She would have been fined and released without bail- you don't get the electric chair for defacing a poster in the subway.

**Cujo** · 27-09-2012, 04:07 PM

Truth or not, in some countries people have the right to say what they think.
Do you support Israel BM?

**Boon Mee** · 27-09-2012, 05:00 PM

Originally Posted by Koojo

Truth or not, in some countries people have the right to say what they think.
Do you support Israel BM?

100%

It's a lovely country with lovely ladies!

**Freewheelin2012** · 28-09-2012, 03:30 PM

This one has a caller complaining about the ad.

**Boon Mee** · 28-09-2012, 03:50 PM

^
What are you objecting to, the description that terrorists are Jihad Savages or the State of Israel in general? Put yer cards on the table here, man...

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