Flag-burning used to be a free-speech cause celebre in the liberal media, like 25 years ago when the Revolutionary Communist Party went to court for their right to burn the American flag. But so far the media isn’t paying attention to the new “Burn ISIS Flag Challenge.”
Some leftist sites like Mother Jones and Blue Nation Review have noticed. Catchy videos are on YouTube:
IB Times reported ‘a Lebanese YouTube user uploaded a video of himself burning a flag.
Similar to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in which people choose others to their do own videos, the user nominated "the whole world " to take part in the #BurnISISFlagChallenge.’ The campaign soon went viral, especially in Lebanon following the beheading of one of the country's soldiers by IS.”
However, some are not happy with the protest campaign and are calling for those found burning the flag to face the "sternest punishments upon them."
Lebanon's justice minister Ashraf Rifi accused the three who burnt the flag at Sassine Square of insulting Islam since their banner featured the words: "There is no god but God and Muhammad is his Prophet," written on it. Rifi said this "has nothing to do with Isis and its terrorist approach," reported Asharq Al-Awsat.
Nabil Naqoula, a member of Lebanon's Change and Reform parliamentary group, dismissed Rifi's suggestions the group intended to insult Islam.
He said: "The youths who burned the Isis flag did not mean to insult the Islamic religion", adding that "this flag does not represent Islam in the slightest."
