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It’s Ok for Rastafarians to smoke weed to meditate: Italian court

An Italian court acquitted a man found with 58 grams of cannabis in his possession because, as a Rastafarian, he was using the ‘sacred herb’ to meditate.

It’s Ok for Rastafarians to smoke weed to meditate: Italian court
Photo: Robyn Beck/AFP

Explaining the reasons behind the April acquittal, the court in Bari said that “Rastafarians are followers of a religion whose believers use marijuana for meditation”, adding that the drug was just for personal use.

The 30-year-old was arrested in May 2016 after police found eight grams of cannabis in his pocket and a further 50 grams during a search of his home.

The man said that he had set up a meditation room at home, where he listened to Rasta music on a record player while smoking weed.

A prosecutor had called for up to four months in prison but his lawyer, Luca Bruno, argued that marijuana is regarded as a sacred herb within the Rastafari ‘religion’.

Indeed, Rastafarians believe that the marijuana plant has holy powers, and use it during meditation sessions to enhance a sense of unity and spirituality. A short prayer is usually recited before it is smoked.

Although it lacks legal recognition, Rastafari, which originated in Jamaica in the 1930s, is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement.

Despite cannabis use being illegal in Italy, some three million kilos of the drug are consumed in the country each year.

 

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French court orders Twitter to reveal anti-hate speech efforts

A French court has ordered Twitter to give activists full access to all its documents relating to efforts to combat racism, sexism and other forms of hate speech on the social network.

French court orders Twitter to reveal anti-hate speech efforts
Photo: Alastair Pike | AFP

Six anti-discrimination groups had taken Twitter to court in France last year, accusing the US social media giant of “long-term and persistent” failures in blocking hateful comments from the site.

The Paris court ordered Twitter to grant the campaign groups full access to all documents relating to the company’s efforts to combat hate speech since May 2020. The ruling applies to Twitter’s global operation, not just France.

Twitter must hand over “all administrative, contractual, technical or commercial documents” detailing the resources it has assigned to fighting homophobic, racist and sexist discourse on the site, as well as “condoning crimes against humanity”.

The San Francisco-based company was given two months to comply with the ruling, which also said it must reveal how many moderators it employs in France to examine posts flagged as hateful, and data on the posts they process.

The ruling was welcomed by the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF), one of the groups that had taken the social media giant to court.

“Twitter will finally have to take responsibility, stop equivocating and put ethics before profit and international expansion,” the UEJF said in a statement on its website.

Twitter’s hateful conduct policy bans users from promoting violence, or threatening or attacking people based on their race, religion, gender identity or disability, among other forms of discrimination.

Like other social media businesses it allows users to report posts they believe are hateful, and employs moderators to vet the content.

But anti-discrimination groups have long complained that holes in the policy allow hateful comments to stay online in many cases.

French prosecutors on Tuesday said they have opened an investigation into a wave of racist comments posted on Twitter aimed at members of the country’s national football team.

The comments, notably targeting Paris Saint-Germain star Kylian Mbappe, were posted after France was eliminated from the Euro 2020 tournament last week.

France has also been having a wider public debate over how to balance the right to free speech with preventing hate speech, in the wake of the controversial case of a teenager known as Mila.

The 18-year-old sparked a furore last year when her videos, criticising Islam in vulgar terms, went viral on social media.

Thirteen people are on trial accused of subjecting her to such vicious harassment that she was forced to leave school and was placed under police protection.

While President Emmanuel Macron is among those who have defended her right to blaspheme, left-wing critics say her original remarks amounted to hate speech against Muslims.

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