Free Speech On the Run

There are at least two critical stories right now about the shrinking of free speech.

The first involves the criminal prosecution of Dutch parliamentarian, Geert Wilders, (“Death to Free Speech in the Netherlands”). A Dutch appellated court has reversed a lower court decision and is allowing Wilders to charge “him with ‘inciting hatred and discrimination’ against Muslims for his film [Fitna] exposing the threat of radical Islam.”

The second is this week’s mau-mauing of the UK’s House of Lords by a single member, Muslim Lord Ahmed, Muslim Lord Ahmed, forbidding the body from holding a private viewing of Fitna.

Fitna in English can be downlaoded and viewed here. I found the embed code was faulty.

A Britisher’s view of what happened can be read here. Here's what's going on in the Netherlands:
2009: A year to defend free speech
Or lose it.

By Geert Wilders & Robert Spencer

Wednesday, January 21, was a black day for freedom, and the beginning of an all-out assault on free speech in the Netherlands. The Amsterdam Court of Appeals ordered the prosecution of Geert Wilders (one of this article’s co-authors) for his statements about Islam. To participate in public debate is now a dangerous activity. This is the Netherlands today—and it could be the entire Western world tomorrow.

The prosecution of Wilders was unexpected, though in retrospect one can see that something like it has been in the offing for a while. The year 2008 marked 60 years since the United Nations first promulgated its Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Yet instead of celebrating this notable anniversary by reaffirming human rights, the world in 2008 saw certain fundamentally important human rights nearly disappear under intense pressure from Islamic countries that oppose freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the equality of all people before the law. Islamic efforts to create exceptional privileges for Muslims in the area of human rights have been advancing for quite some time, and they made great strides in 2008. Now, with the Amsterdam court’s judgment, we see the outcome of such efforts.

The Islamic bloc has been on record for two decades as opposing free speech. In 1990, foreign ministers of the 57 member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), currently the largest voting bloc in the United Nations, adopted the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam. It states clearly that Islamic law—sharia—is the only true source of human rights.

Few analysts in 1990 understood that this was tantamount to declaring the legitimacy of institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims, and signing the death warrant of freedom of speech and freedom of conscience as well. And not just in Muslim lands: The OIC and allied organizations have been aggressively pursuing efforts to extend elements of sharia into the West, though few people realize it even today.

Due to the relentless efforts of the OIC, passage of a resolution on combating defamation of religions is now a yearly ritual in the United Nations. First introduced in the General Assembly in 2005, the resolution has been adopted with landslide votes every year since. While this resolution is non-binding, the OIC has declared its intention to seek a binding resolution—one that would require UN member states to criminalize criticism of Islam, as the OIC defines such criticism. This is a clear indication of the progressing Islamization of the United Nations.

On March 28 of last year, the UN hit rock bottom. Its Human Rights Council—whose members include such stalwart defenders of freedom as China, Cuba, Angola, and Saudi Arabia—adopted a resolution that severely modified the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression.

Instead of simply reporting on cases in which the right to free expression is being violated, the special rapporteur will now also have to report on cases in which that right is being “abused”—including when individuals use their freedom of speech to criticize Islam, or the particular elements of Islam that jihadists use to justify violence and Islamic supremacism. In essence, this means that the function of the special rapporteur has changed 180 degrees—from safeguarding the rights of individuals who hold unpopular or controversial ideas, to trying to limit the freedom of individuals to express such ideas.

As the Canadian delegation noted, “instead of promoting freedom of expression the Special Rapporteur would be policing its exercise.” This is fundamentally inconsistent with the very foundation of the human-rights tradition, as are measures combating “defamation of religions.”

Such measures aim to protect institutions and ideas from criticism, instead of protecting individuals from the consequences of criticizing them. The very concept of freedom of speech has thereby been turned on its head.Now the full force of this initiative has been directed against those who are sounding the alarm about the Islamization of the West.

How could this have happened? Where was the opposition from Western nations? The silence in Europe has been deafening. Only recently did the French ambassador finally speak out, on behalf of the European Union, against the UN initiative to outlaw defamation of religions. He stated that the EU would not accept integration of the notion of defamation of religions into the framework of human rights, since the primary purpose of human rights is to protect people, not religions.

Still, talk is cheap. If we want to preserve our universal human rights, we have to show determination in 2009 to defend them from the OIC’s attempts to erode them. The Amsterdam Appeals Court decision only indicates how urgently needed this action is today. But opposing the OIC would require strong, positive acts, which would be a departure from the current pattern. In the case of the resolution on the mandate of the special rapporteur, European countries did nothing but abstain from voting on the resolution. Even Canada, which spoke out strongly against the resolution, abstained rather than voting against it. The United States also abstained; in fact, no nation voted against the resolution at all.

This was an absolute disgrace. The free nations of the world should have voted with their feet instead and resigned from the Human Rights Council immediately. Civilized states have no business participating in a forum that has been hijacked by the Islamic-supremacist agenda to replace fundamental human rights with the barbaric strictures of sharia.

They should also boycott the 2009 Durban Review Conference (Durban II), because there is every indication that this “UN World Conference Against Racism” will be turned into an anti-Israeli and pro-Islamic platform under the direction of the OIC and will end up actually promoting racism and intolerance.

In October 2008, the Second Preparatory Session of the 20-state Preparatory Committee for Durban II convened in Geneva, with Libya, that paragon of human rights, as chair, and Pakistan and Iran among the vice-chairs. This Preparatory Session produced a “Draft Outcome Document for the Durban Review Conference 2009,” recommending that UN member states make “defamation of Islam”—not just of “religion,” but of Islam in particular—a criminal offense on the local, national, and international levels. This “defamation,” the document declared, must no longer enjoy the protection that it has up to now under the “pretext” of “freedom of expression, counter terrorism or national security.” In other words, the Durban II Preparatory Session wants to criminalize investigations of the ideology, beliefs, motives, and goals of Islamic jihad terrorists, so that effectively the only people linking Islam with violence will be the jihadists themselves, and the Free World will be mute and defenseless before their advance.

If Geert Wilders is silenced, all those who oppose attempts to impose Islamic legal norms upon the West will be silenced also. European nations and the United States should stop appeasing Islam and start fighting together against the rapidly increasing Islamization of Europe. This is a struggle for human rights and human dignity, and for the great heritage of Western civilization that has given so many things to the world, yet whose children and heirs seem curiously embarrassed and reluctant to defend it.

Enough is enough. We must defend our freedom, or we will most certainly lose it.

—Geert Wilders is a Dutch parliamentarian, leader of the Party of Freedom, and maker of the film Fitna. Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth about Muhammad.
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Second Thoughts on Planetarium Visits

We were making a mild funny about planetariums yesterday, drawing this priceless response from correspondent John Ruberry at Marathon Pundit:

Political correctness at Chicago's Adler Planetarium

How low will the forces of political correctness stoop?

Well, all the way down to the basement of Chicago's Adler Planetarium, that's for certain.I took Litte Marathon Pundit there Tuesday afternoon. She's on spring break from school this week, and her third grade class is spending a lot of time discussing astronomy.

The planetarium underwent a major expansion in the 1990s, I hadn't been there since the project was completed. My daughter liked our day-trip a lot, and that was enough for me.

Almost.

My probing eye picked up some frightening political-correctness in the astrolobe section of the planetarium. Astrolobes were devices commonly used, prior to the invention of the sextant, for navigation.

However, these instruments were also used to predict star positions, and in the Islamic world, they were utilized to find the precise direction of Mecca so a Muslim could pray in the right direction.

Hence the Muslim interest in astrolabes.

The text pictured appears above the Adler astrolabe collection, it reads:

In the Middle Ages, the Islamic from Seville (Spain) to Samarkand (Uzbekistan). The position of each astrolabe on this map shows where it was made.Non-Muslims, such as Jews and Christians, prospered under tolerant Islamic rule. (Emphasis mine.) Throughout this vast area, people studied the sky using tools created in the great Islamic cities.

Huh? What does the (alleged) Muslim toleration of Jews in Christians in the Medieval Muslim world have to do astrolabes?

In my opionion, absolutely nothing.According to numerous sources, including Robert Spencer's The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades):


The astrolabe was developed, if not perfected, long before Muhammad was born.

As for the Muslim tolerance of Jews and Christians that the Adler display referred to, it was not any type of tolerance that a multi-cultural society would recognize.

Jews, Christians and members of other faiths living in Muslim lands during the Middle Ages were forced to pay a jizya, a poll tax to the Muslim rulers. Conversion to Islam would get them out of that responsibility. Death or slavery could be the fate for those who didn't pay up--or convert.

Have you heard of the Janissaries? No? From Wikipedia:

The first Janissary units comprised war captives and slaves. After the 1380s Sultan Selim I filled their ranks with the results of taxation in human form called devshirmeh. The sultan’s men would conscript as a form of tax in-human-kind a number of non-Muslim, usually Christian, boys – at first at random, later, by strict selection – and take them to be trained. In later centuries they appear to have favored essentially Greeks and Albanians (who also supplied many gendarmes). Usually they would select about one in five boys of ages seven to fourteen but the numbers could be changed to correspond with the need for soldiers. Later they would extend the devshirmeh to other Balkan countries. Local residents could hardly be expected to appreciate the custom, although there is evidence that some Christians sought to have their children recruited as a way to gain social advancement. In some cases bribes were given and ages were lied about.

Then there are the Corsairs from what is now Algeria, as Bernard Lewis writes in What Went Wrong? : The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East:

...the Barbary Corsairs from North Africa were raiding the coasts of England and Ireland and even, in 1627, Iceland, bringing back human booty for sale in the slave-markets of Algiers.

St. Vincent de Paul, the founder of the Vincentian Order was perhaps the most famous slave captured by the Barbary pirates.

(Chicago's DePaul University, a subject much blogged about here, takes its name from him.)

Let me return to that statement above the Adler's astrolabe exhibit:
Non-Muslims, such as Jews and Christians, prospered under tolerant Islamic rule.

Simply put, that statement is a lie.

Islamic by 2050?

WorldNetDaily reports on a Washington, D.C. imam who says he's part of a movement to replace the US government "with 'the Islamic State of North America' by 2050."

Washington-based cleric working toward 'Islamic State of North America' by 2050

Posted: November 10, 20071:00 a.m. Eastern
By Art Moore© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

A Washington, D.C., imam states explicitly on the website for his organization that he is part of a movement working toward replacement of the U.S. government with "the Islamic State of North America" by 2050.

With branches in Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and Philadelphia, the group As-Sabiqun – or the Vanguard – is under the leadership of Abdul Alim Musa in the nation's capital.
Musa's declaration of his intention to help lead a takeover of America was highlighted by noted Islam observer Robert Spencer on his website Jihad Watch.

Spencer told WND that figures such as Musa should not be ignored, "Not because they have the power to succeed, but because they may commit acts of violence to achieve their purpose."

Read the rest of this article here.

In addition to what Spencer says, I would also note that the activities of Musa and his kind are instructive as to the motives of many Islamists living and operating in the United States.

Islam's One-Sided Dialogue with Christianity

I see where 138 Islamic scholars have written an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI and some 25 other Christian leaders, warning that “The ‘survival of the world’ is at stake if Muslims and Christians do not make peace with each other.” (“Pope told ‘survival of world’ at stake if Muslims and Christians do not make peace”).

Among the 138 scholars are Nihad Awad, National Executive Director and co-founder of CAIR, and Professor Dr. Ingrid Mattson, President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Readers are well familiar with CAIR. ISNA is not quite so famous. It was begat by the Muslim Students Association (MSA) in 1981, which in turn was begat by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1963. As we reported about the ISNA before this in “Just What Is the MSA?” and “The Plan of the Muslim Brotherhood ", and as described in Congressional testimony:

The Islamic Society of North America is an influential front for the promotion of the Wahhabi political, ideological and theological infrastructure in the United States and Canada.

Established by the Muslim Students Association, ISNA seeks to marginalize leaders of the Muslim faith who do not support its ideological goals. Through sponsorship of propaganda, doctrinal material and mosques, is pursuing a strategic objective of dominating Islam in North America. ISNA provides ideological material to about 1,100 of an estimated 1,500 to 2,500 mosques in North America. It vets and certifies Wahhabi-trained imams and is the main official endorsing agent for Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military.

The Times Online quotes the 29-page letter as follows:

The scholars state: “As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them - so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes.”

In other words, we Muslims are not against Christianity, so long as Christians don’t do any of the myriad things we Muslims are hard-wired to regard as “waging war against” us. This is often repeated by apologists of Islam who maintain that Islam, the religion of peace, only resorts to war in self-defense.

Robert Spencer explains just “how elastic and essentially meaningless the concept of fighting only in self defense” actually is in Islam.

By way of example, he records the answer to an inquiry about offensive jihad given by South African mufti Ebrahim Desai, who confirmed that, since “the primary responsibility of the Muslim ruler is to spread Islam throughout the world…if a country doesn’t allow the propagation if Islam to its inhabitants in a suitable manner or creates hindrances to this, then the Muslim ruler would be justified in waging Jihad against this country…If the Kuffar [unbelievers] allow us to spread Islam peacefully, then we would not wage Jihad against them.” (The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades).

Spencer concludes the concept has no boundaries at all:

What constitutes a sufficient provocation? Must the defending side wait until the enemy strikes the first military blow? These questions have no clear or definitive answers in Islamic law, making it possible for anyone to portray virtually any struggle as defensive without violating the strict canons of that law. But this also renders meaningless the oft-repeated claims that jihad warfare can only be defensive.

As we’ve seen, Muslims can justify defensive warfare over slights including a non-belligerent Christian leader addressing a Christian audience (Benedict at Regensburg), in a Christian nation and making mention of some failings of Islam, or the insupportable cartoon riots when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published drawings of Mohammed--neither of which remotely entailed waging war on Muslims nor driving any from their homes: (but of course, many found themselves “oppressed” by being forced to share a planet with people holding contrary opinions about the Prophet!).

Any abused enabling wife will tell you that her black eyes are not the fault of her husband for being a brute, but her fault for always doing things that drive him crazy. If she would just give him what he needs to remain peaceful, he's as harmless as a lamb.

Ryan Evans at The Investigative Project believes the open letter isn’t really intended for the Pope or the other Christian leaders at all, but rather “is meant to influence the Christian public around the world.” (“A Common Word Between Us and You is a Call for Conversion”).

He points out that the choice of Quran verse 3:64, (the selection of which by the scholars Ryan calls dishonest), does not signal that the letter's drafters sincerely recognize common ground between Islam and Christianity, because the context of that verse makes clear that Islam views neither Christians nor Jews as worshippers of the true God.

(Aal ‘Imran 3:64) Say: O People of the Scripture! Come to a common word between us and you: that we shall worship none but God, and that we shall ascribe no partner unto Him, and that none of us shall take others for lords beside God. And if they turn away, then say: Bear witness that we are they who have surrendered (unto Him).

3:65: Ye, People of the Book! Why dispute ye about Abraham, when the Law and the Gospel were not revealed till after him? Have ye no understanding?

3:66: Ah! Yes are those who fell to disputing (even) in matters of which ye had some knowledge! But why dispute ye in matters of which ye have no knowledge? It is Allah who knows and ye who know not!

3:67: Abraham was not a Jew, nor yet a Christian, but he was true in Faith, and bowed his will to Allah's (which is Islam) and he joined not gods with Allah.

3:68: Without doubt, among men, the nearest of kin to Abraham are those who follow him, as are also this Apostle and those who believe: And Allah is the Protector of those who have Faith.

3:69: It is the wish of a section of the People of the Book to lead you astray. But they shall lead astray (not you), but themselves, and they do not perceive.

3:70: Ye People of the Book! Why reject ye the Signs of Allah, of which ye are (yourselves) witnesses?

3:71: Ye People of the Book! Why do you clothe Truth with falsehood, and conceal the Truth while ye have knowledge?

Writes Ryan:

In full context, it is clear that this section of the Quran, including 3:64, is a condemnation of Christianity and Judaism and a call for conversion. Why would this verse be included in a call for peace and understanding between Islam and Christianity? The authors and signatories of this letter are among the most learned scholars of Islam in the world. They know the context of 3:64 and its true message, which is exactly why they included it. This letter is not a call for peace. It is a call for conversion.

Read the rest of Ryan’s article here.

Islam, By the Book

The following appeared in this Sunday's Detroit News/Free Press:

Insurgents' threat: Convert, pay up or get out

June 10, 2007
BY HANNAH ALLAM and LEILA FADEL
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- An Al Qaeda-affiliated insurgent group is giving Christians in Baghdad a stark set of options: Convert to Islam, marry your daughters to our fighters, pay an Islamic tax or leave with only the clothes on your back.

A U.S. military official said U.S. forces became aware of the threats last month and now have erected barriers around the largest Christian enclave in Baghdad's Dora neighborhood in an effort to protect its residents.

Christians in Baghdad refuse to discuss the threats for fear of retribution.
But in Syria, where thousands of Iraqi Christians have fled, tales abound of families that were killed or driven from their homes because they either refused or couldn't afford to pay the jizya, a tax usually levied on non-Muslim men of military age that's been part of Islam for more than 1,000 years.

"Two or three months ago, we heard we were going to be forcibly removed from Dora," said Rafah Elia Daoud, 53, who fled to Damascus, Syria's capital, in May. "Not everyone got a paper with the threat, but we knew. The choice was to convert, pay the jizya or get out."

Madeline Shukr Yusuf, 74, recalled her flight from Iraq. She said she didn't have enough money to pay a monthly jizya of 250,000 Iraqis dinars, about $200. The insurgents were determined to collect their tax, she said.

"They wanted to kill me and take my gold bracelets," she said, tears filling her eyes at the memory. "They tell us pay or give a daughter in marriage to a fighter."

Christian communities

Iraq long had been home to thriving Christian communities, primarily Assyrians and Chaldeans, who trace their roots to ancient Mesopotamia. Some of Saddam Hussein's closest confidants were Christian, including his foreign minister, Tarik Aziz. Christian communities were prominent in many major Iraqi cities, including Mosul in the north and Basra in the south.

Iraqi Christians are a tiny minority in the country of some 24 million.

In metro Detroit, where more than 50,000 Chaldeans live, many of whom emigrated from Iraq, there is concern about relatives in Baghdad and traditional Chaldean enclaves near Mosul.

Chaldeans are Iraqi Catholics. They speak the ancient language used by Jesus, Aramaic.
As Iraq has descended into chaos, many Christians have fled, joining an estimated 2.2 million exiles, including 1.4 million Iraqis now estimated to be living in Syria. At least 19,000 Iraqi Christians have registered in Damascus with the United Nations refugee agency, and thousands more are thought to have sought shelter there but have yet to register.
Copyright © 2007 Detroit Free Press Inc.

The jizya tax is an integral part of triumphant Islam towards its subjects, (dhimmis), intended both to humiliate those forced to pay it, and to help fund the sharia system. Robert Spencer describes it, in part, in a recent FrontPage Magazine article, ("Whitewashing Radical Islam"):

Dhimmis must endure inferior status under the Sharia; if they protest, they risk forfeiting the “protection” that they buy with their special high tax rate (jizya) and their humiliation.

The elaborate legal superstructure of dhimmitude in Islamic law is founded on the Qur’an’s Sura 9:29, which calls on Muslims to “fight” against the “People of the Book” (primarily Jews and Christians) “until they pay the Jizya [special tax for non-Muslims] with willing submission, feel themselves subdued.” A vast body of Muslim theology and jurisprudence guaranteed dhimmis relative security as long as the jizya was paid; if payment ceased, jihad would resume.

This is the origin of the system of dhimmitude — a vast, uniquely Islamic institution of religious apartheid, implemented for over a millennium across three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe) and still influential in Islamic nations’ policies toward non-Muslim populations. The native “infidel” populations of lands conquered by Islamic armies were required to pay the jizya, recognize Islamic ownership of their land and accept laws forbidding them to own weapons, ring church bells, build new places of worship or repair old ones, testify in Muslim courts, or dress like Muslims. If they complained about these inequalities, they risked forfeiting their “protection.”