French Arrests Raise Question: Is Free Speech for All?; Associated Press via New York Times, 1/25/15

Associated Press via New York Times; French Arrests Raise Question: Is Free Speech for All? :

"That has unleashed accusations of a double standard, in which free speech applies to those who mock Islam while Muslims are penalized for expressing their own provocative views. Many Muslims complain that France aggressively prosecutes anti-Semitic slurs, but that they are not protected from similar racist speech.

French police have arrested more than 70 people since the attacks for allegedly defending or glorifying terrorism. The most famous is comedian Dieudonne M'bala M'bala, charged over a Facebook post saying "I feel like Charlie Coulibaly" — a merger of the names of magazine Charlie Hebdo and Amedy Coulibaly, the attacker who killed four hostages at the supermarket. The comic also has repeatedly been prosecuted for anti-Semitism.

Dieudonne later suggested he was being silenced by free-speech hypocrisy. "You consider me like Amedy Coulibaly when I am no different from Charlie," he wrote in an open letter to French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

Many countries have laws limiting free speech, and on paper most hate-speech rules do not discriminate against any particular faith or group."