Unintended consequences. A German cartoonist who depicted Christ "playfully" as a naked binge-drinking surfer high on frankincense and friend of Jimi Hendrix in a book published in Germany and later in Greece was surprised at a charge of Blasphemy and a summons to appear in the Greek court where he was sentenced in absentia to six months. The Guardian worries about extradition. The EU arrest warrant system guarantees that a Greek arrest warrant is valid in Germany even though blasphemy isn't a crime in Germany. Extraditing your own citizens for crimes committed in other countries isn't unusual if both countries share a common criminal code, but extraditing your own citizens to face charges that aren't even valid in your own country is to deny protection of citizenship and national law. But, that's the EU - supra-law for a supra-socialism where no citizen has a guarantee of laws written by his or her elected representative. The bizarre laws of EU wannabe Turkey are as valid as any your representative wrote. But, hey, it's for the common good. And Jacque "Le Finger" Chirac is writing your constitution.

An online petition to (drama is big to the Left) "Free the cartoonist" has so far, gotten 2 petitioners.

UPDATE: (April 20, 2005) A Greek Appeals court has overturned the conviction for blasphemy.