I confess I didn’t read the piece (most of the material out there seems to be written with a priori commitments :-)), and yes, I too would find it wrong to arrest people for offending the religious beliefs of others. But on that and the question of hooliganism: Wojtek writes:
> [WS:] Hooliganism, like sedition, is mainly in the eye of the
> beholder, especially when no physical harm is done. It is basically
> Russian equivalent of "disorderly conduct" in the US which can mean
> anything that the cop says it does.
Right, okay, but law has to play the collective eye of [majority] beholders, and I think the majority in Russia (and likely the rest of the world) might see this sort of thing as a form of hooliganism. If so, does this collective eye view justify the punishment?
My own view is confused… I find blanket freedom of speech a mostly libertarian idea that can be criticised on those grounds (cui bono?). And I also find the demarcation of harm at the physical boundary problematic, especially since humans often go to greater trouble to avoid certain kinds of mental harm more than bodily harm. In other words, there are two kinds of arguments I can see that permits these sort of stunts: (a) freedom of individual/speech uber alles… society just cannot morally trample on my right to do anything I want as long as it does not physically harm others, (b) long-term/unknown payoff: this sort of stunt benefits humankind… the trouble with this defence is that some effort, if not complete, has to be made to show how such benefit might accrue.
Overall, I think throwing them in jail is a little ridiculous. A lot more so than the stunts themselves.
2 cents,
—ravi