Tuesday, April 22
France Outlaws Anoxeia-Promotion in Anticipation of New EU Terrorist Provocation Statues
A press release issued last week (18 April) from the European Council headquarters in Brussels announced delegates there had
reached a common approach on the amendment of the Framework Decision on combating terrorism proposed by the Commission on 6 November 2008. [sic ?] The amendment up-dates the Framework Decision making public provocation to commit a terrorist offence, recruitment and training for terrorism punishable behaviour, also when committed through the Internet [emphasis added]....In apparent anticipation of that announcement, French politicians had promulgated one day earlier an "oh-so-very-Parie" legal interpretation of the new European terrorist provocation statue: jail anyone "behind anorexia-promoting websites."
The Council Framework Decision of 13 June 2002 on combating terrorism constitutes a key tool in the fight against terrorism. It harmonises the definition of terrorist offences in all Member States and ensures that they establish for natural and legal persons having committed or being liable for such offences penalties and sanctions, which reflect the seriousness of such offences. It sets out jurisdictional rules to guarantee that terrorist offences may be effectively prosecuted....
According to Reuters news service, the Lower House of the French National Assembly late last weekadopted a bill aimed at criminalising "incitement to excessive thinness by publicising of any kind". The bill carries a penalty of up to three years in jail and a fine of €45,000.The bill now must be approved by the Senate before becoming law. A Higher House spokesperson said officials there were awaiting testimony (and comping) by lobbyists from the French food industry's chocolate, truffles and escargot divisions before voting on the measure.A number of websites publish advice and encouragement to people, mostly young women, who want to be dangerously thin. These are targetted by the French bill in order to protect the 40,000 anorexics living in France.
The law is aimed at sites which provoke a person to excessive weight loss by encouraging prolonged restriction of food, risking death or directly compromising the person's health.
"Giving young girls advice about how to lie to their doctors, telling them what kinds of food are easiest to vomit, encouraging them to torture themselves whenever they take any kind of food is not part of liberty of expression," health minister Roselyne Bachelot told parliament, according to the Reuters news agency....
Companies involved in the French fashion industry signed a voluntary charter last week to help promote healthy body images but the French government stopped short of imposing a compulsory ban on using models considered to be too thin.
In opposing the France's Lower House legislative, Bush White House spin meister Clem Kaddidlehopper said President Bush had offered his presidential jet Air Force One to representatives of the Texas Beef and Hog Association.
"Mad Cow and hog wastrel diseases that my USDA commissioner tells me are rampant in US beef and pork products will achieve the same result will giving the illusion of sound nutrition. Here in America--"It's what for dinner."-- increased meat sales to France would enrich a critical segment of my corporate base," President Bush told the Associate Press yesterday between bites of Mama Mavis Davis's Down Home Barbecue luncheon for the Southern League of Bulimic Buddhism held in the White House Rose Garden."The US Commerce Department's foreign trade representatives have been unable to interest the Arab world in pork bellies. Perhaps France can pick up the slack," Bush noted on entering the West Wing before the SLBB's post-lunch "puke purge" group meditation.
