A ver si el Reforma lee The Economist

The Economist se ha ublicado de forma ininterrumpida desde 1843, y ha seguido fiel a sus ideales liberales: "Tomar parte en una severa carrera entre la inteligencia, que presiona para ir adelante, y la de de poca valor, timorata ignorancia que obstruye nuestro progreso."

La revista británica sale todos los jueves, y hoy dedicó suportada a la guerra de las caricaturas. Y en qué concluye el semanario de noticias más prestigiado del mundo: que la libertad de expresión está sobre las sensibilidades religiosas, en una democracia claro está, porque en una dictadora no hay libertad de expresión. Copio de la revista:

"It was “unacceptable” to incite religious hatred by publishing such pictures, said America's State Department. Jack Straw, Britain's foreign secretary, called their publication unnecessary, insensitive, disrespectful and wrong.

Really? There is no question that these cartoons are offensive to many Muslims. They offend against a convention in Islam that the Prophet should not be depicted. And they offend because they can be read as equating Islam with terrorism: one cartoon has Muhammad with a bomb for his headgear. It is not a good idea for newspapers to insult people's religious or any other beliefs just for the sake of it. But that is and should be their own decision, not a decision for governments, clerics or other self-appointed arbiters of taste and responsibility. In a free country people should be free to publish whatever they want within the limits set by law...

In this newspaper's view, the fewer constraints that are placed on free speech the better. Limits designed to protect people (from libel and murder, for example) are easier to justify than those that aim in some way to control thinking (such as laws on blasphemy, obscenity and Holocaust-denial)... Freedom of expression, including the freedom to poke fun at religion, is not just a hard-won human right but the defining freedom of liberal societies."

Ojalá los directivos del Reforma se den el tiempo de leer a alguien que ya tiene tiempo en el negocio, un poquito más...